Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Pictures
Review: This book has excellent pictures for identification, however it mainly uses scientific names. There is also limited information about the spider or types of spiders that are pictured. I use this book for identification by the pictures and another book (National Audubon Society's field guide to insects and spiders) to learn more specifics about the spiders attitue and lifesyle. These two books compliment each other perfectly. There are also pictures of spider relatives and insects commonly thought of as spiders, such as whipscorpions, ticks, and arthropods. This book is excellent for a reference!
Rating: 
Summary: What kind of spider is that?
Review: This was one of the first books I bought with my own money when I was a kid. I have since bought an updated version since most of the pages have come unglued in the old one (from use, not poor quality). Typical golden book illustrations, not photographs. Easy enough for a kid to use but filled with enough spider species for any adult to use. I have only found one or two spiders in my life that were not in this book.
Rating:
Summary: A good little field guide
Review: Upon first reading, it is unfortunate that "Spiders and Their Kin" shows but a select few species from among the Arachnid pantheon, but it has been a great read and a great reference over the ten-plus years since I first purchased an earlier edition.Used as a sole reference, the book is lacking in many crucial details, but there are more specialized books available to those who find that the information within these pages is less than desired. True, it will not go in-depth with regard to each individual species, and may not show one in particular, but it's a handier starting point for arachnid identification than its larger brethren and, that, I think, is the purpose for which it is intended to be used. The bottom line: if you know little to nothing about arachnids at this time, or you just need a field guide to get you started on making identifications, go ahead and buy Levi's little gem. If you feel like you need to learn all that can be learned about an individual species of spider or need more specialized/more advanced field guides, then this is probably not the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely helpful for identifying those creepy crawlies!
Review: What this little guide to spiders lacks in detail it makes up for in ease of use. For any amateur arachnologist or just someone who wants to know what kind of spider (or other 8-legged critter) is crawling up their wall, this is an indispensable helper. The color illustrations are accurate, the information provided is adequate even for classroom use, and the number of different arachnids included is quite comprehensive for a book of its size.
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