Review: Milton the Mighty

Milton the Mighty is a wonderfully endearing, humorous story of teamwork and ingenuity where the heroes are just perfectly adorable and likeable – and this from someone who, whilst not petrified of spiders, has been known to scream a little when faced with one of the larger house spiders! 

I adored Milton and his brilliantly supportive friends, Ralph and Audrey who exude personality and then some!  Poor harmless Milton, the false black widow spider, has been falsely accused of being a danger to humans by the nasty Felicity Thrubwell who runs a company called BugKILL, determined to exterminate all spiders, driven by her greed and fear of them.  Her media campaign is impacting on, and endangering, many spiders … and Milton the Mighty is determined to do something about it.

Unfortunately for Milton, he lives in a house where the owner, Mr Macey screams rather loudly whenever he sees a spider. Luckily, the spiders have a friend on their side.  Zoe, Mr Macey’s daughter, becomes the champion they need to help them fight back.  Of course, the spiders take action to help themselves as well.  Milton’s natural curiosity and daring blossom as he is encouraged to discover his courage by his supportive friends. 

There is plenty of humour in this gorgeous story, lots of fast-paced action and ingenious interactions between Zoe and Milton whose friendship is gorgeous!  When he decides to befriend Zoe, his web becomes linked to the human web, the internet, in order to educate and redress the balance for the spider population.   This is such a heart-warming, fun and uplifting story with a really important message around the conservation of spiders and how important they are to our ecosystem, and also gives us food for thought on the harm humans can inflict on these beautiful creatures, often through misplaced fears. 

The cover and interior illustrations by Alex G Griffiths are wonderfully whimsical and complement the story perfectly:  the expressions are just perfect!

I loved the ‘Spidery Sciency Stuff’ and ‘How to Speak Spider’ at the end of the book which gives information on the real spiders upon which Milton and his friends are based and on the body parts of arachnids which I have no doubt will fascinate young readers.  This is a perfect story for children of 7+ who I’m sure will take Milton and his friends to heart, just as I did!