So pleased that my poem ‘Spiders Build Your Webs at Night’ was included in the children’s poetry collection ‘If I Could Eat The Stars and Other Poems‘ published this month by Fremantle Press.

It was inspired by the orb weavers in my front garden who build all along the eaves in front of my study window. Unfortunately they are a soft and tasty snack for a bird or wasp so they build their elaborate webs at night while their predators are asleep. They emerge in October every year and I love watching them but then they drop in numbers and disappear mostly by January. They hide during the daylight hours but wasps especially can smell spider pheromones so they don’t have much luck avoiding them. Lucky they hide their eggs and I get a new crop of spiderling garden orb weavers to admire every Spring.

‘If I Could Eat the Stars’ is edited by Sally Murphy and Rebecca M. Newman of Alphabet Soup Books, with wonderful illustrations by local legend and 2026 Children’s Book Week poster designer Briony Stewart.