The Spider Lady: Nan Songer and Her Arachnid World War II Army

Perfect for kids who are fascinated by insects and American history, here is the story of Nan Songer, a little-known hero of World War II, who collected and bred spiders in her home and found new ways to use their silk to help the United States win the war.

Venomous spiders, delicate silk, and science experiments filled Nan Songer’s days and nights--her home in California overflowed with many-legged critters. With inspiration from a friend, Nan began to study how spider silk could be harvested. The finely woven material spiders used to create webs was much stronger than it looked, and Nan was eager to unlock its potential and hopefully help her country at the same time. At the height of WWII, she studied different spiders before landing on the poisonous black widow as the perfect spider to experiment with. Their strong silk could be used for crosshairs on rifles, which Nan used to fill massive orders for the US military. Despite the danger posed by black widows, Nan wasn’t deterred--she wanted to play her part. Using a device she built for extracting silk, Nan humanely used it on the deadly spiders to get both extra fine and super heavy silk.

Penny Parker Klostermann is the author of There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight and A Cooked-Up Fairy Tale. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and was a runner-up for a Barbara Karlin Grant for Writers of Picture Books.

Anne Lambelet has created cover art for several book series, and has illustrated a variety of books, including Cloaked in Courage, Maria the Matador, and The Poisoned Apple. Her titles have received starred reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and others. She received her illustration degree from Philadelphia’s University of the Arts.