Ant and grasshopper

Elemental contrast is at the core of this lively retelling, which adds a new twist to the traditional fable about the title characters. Careful, compulsive Ant lives in a grand house, where he counts and keeps records of all the food that he has stored for the coming winter. He is irritated by Grasshopper, who likes to play the fiddle and sing outside his windows. The watercolor-and-colored-pencil scenes show the two creatures first in their opposite worlds and then standing off. After Grasshopper's singing stops, though, Ant finds that he misses the sound. After looking for Grasshopper in the snow, Ant takes him in, and in a perfect turnaround, joins in Grasshopper's songs discovers that he loves to sing, even if he is quite off-key. A final cozy picture in warm shades of red and brown shows the friends together before the fire with a closing pun: Everybody counts. --Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist

K-Gr 2-Industrious Ant and pesty, music-loving Grasshopper move beyond Aesop's pointed lesson on negligence to a quite different moral as Gray further develops their relationship in this engaging, extended story. The plot unfolds in familiar fashion but with considerably more dialogue and character development. Ant is a rich, hardworking, bean-counting fellow. Grasshopper is a bothersome distraction. "It's June, Ant! The sun is warm; the sky is blue. Come out and dance...." Ferri expands the funin fulsome watercolor scenes of Ant's glowing home and the changing seasons beyond his door and windows. The sturdy comic insects, Grasshopper in a jaunty cap and Ant in visor and spectacles on a chain, have expressive eyes and body language. The traditional dichotomy begins to shift as the changing seasons bring quieter times. Ant finds himself distracted in his counting as "fragments of rhyme and wisps of music jangled about in his head." Grasshopper is turned away with a slammed door when he first turns up cold and hungry. "Hah!... I warned you. You danced and sang all summer, while respectable folk worked hard for a living, and it serves you right." Ah, but Ant has more to him than a hard heart, and his mood and his sleep are now disturbed. The old tale has a new implied moral about empathy and friendship as the two unlikely fellows learn to care for each other when Grasshopper nearly perishes in the snow. The humorous, fluent telling and pictures would pair well with terse Aesop versions and stand on their own, offering especially nice read-aloud fare.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Ant compulsively counts his food stores while Grasshopper incessantly makes music. In a departure from tradition, Ant misses the fiddling when Grasshopper is silenced by winter's cold; finding him half-dead, Ant revives Grasshopper and joins him in song. Aesop's moral is superseded by a new one: "Everybody counts." It's all a little drawn out but also satisfying. Both bright-eyed creatures have personality. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A retelling of the evergreen Aesop fable jauntily adds detail both in the telling and the illustrations. Ant is rich, but all spring and summer he works hard gathering things to eat for winter, and every day he counts them, Scrooge-like: 947 beans, 28 raisins and a "fine smelly wedge of yellow cheese." Grasshopper, though, fiddles his music all summer and at harvest time asks Ant if he can come in, but Ant chides him smugly and says no. During the harsh winter, though, a lonely Ant rescues Grasshopper, dying of hunger at his door, proving that they need each other. The waggish watercolor-andcolored-pencil artwork clothes the bug-eyed bugs; Grasshopper sports a striped muffler and red cap, and Ant wears a green-and-white striped sweater. The ending is a clever twist that's a take-off on the song "Here We Come a Wassailing": "Here we come a waffle-ing / With syrup and with jam / Here we come to dance a jig, / And eat a lot of ham. / Pizza joy come to you, / Made of pickles, mice, and glue. / And we wish you and squish you a happy New Year." Would that all morals were so joyful. (Picture book. 4-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Elemental contrast is at the core of this lively retelling, which adds a new twist to the traditional fable about the title characters. Careful, compulsive Ant lives in a grand house, where he counts and keeps records of all the food that he has stored for the coming winter. He is irritated by Grasshopper, who likes to play the fiddle and sing outside his windows. The watercolor-and-colored-pencil scenes show the two creatures first in their opposite worlds and then standing off. After Grasshopper's singing stops, though, Ant finds that he misses the sound. After looking for Grasshopper in the snow, Ant takes him in, and in a perfect turnaround, joins in Grasshopper's songs discovers that he loves to sing, even if he is "quite off-key." A final cozy picture in warm shades of red and brown shows the friends together before the fire with a closing pun: "Everybody counts." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Gray and Ferri inject this Aesop's fable with a welcome dose of compassion, along with the acknowledgement that all work and no play makes Ant a dull... ant. Ferri's (The Magic Book) light-infused watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations hint at the dispositions of the two players: Ant wears a visor and pince-nez as he scowls and covers his ears to block out Grasshopper's music; the fiddler sports a jaunty cap and dances as he plays. The curmudgeon's gradual warming to Grasshopper's music is cleverly depicted: Ant's pen insists on "making swans out of the twos and fat snowmen out of the eights" in his ledger, while he struggles to concentrate on his accounting. When fall arrives, Ant chastises Grasshopper for his lack of preparations, but he later rescues the frozen Grasshopper, and each expresses appreciation for the other's talents. Gray (the Falcon's Egg trilogy) narrative makes some unusual segues—Ant has a stage fright–themed nightmare, and the book ends with the two singing a nonsense version of a Christmas carol ("Here we come a waffle-ing/ With syrup and with jam"), giving this warmhearted adaptation a wobbly conclusion. Ages 4-–7. (Mar.)

K-Gr 2—Industrious Ant and pesty, music-loving Grasshopper move beyond Aesop's pointed lesson on negligence to a quite different moral as Gray further develops their relationship in this engaging, extended story. The plot unfolds in familiar fashion but with considerably more dialogue and character development. Ant is a rich, hardworking, bean-counting fellow. Grasshopper is a bothersome distraction. "It's June, Ant! The sun is warm; the sky is blue. Come out and dance...." Ferri expands the funin fulsome watercolor scenes of Ant's glowing home and the changing seasons beyond his door and windows. The sturdy comic insects, Grasshopper in a jaunty cap and Ant in visor and spectacles on a chain, have expressive eyes and body language. The traditional dichotomy begins to shift as the changing seasons bring quieter times. Ant finds himself distracted in his counting as "fragments of rhyme and wisps of music jangled about in his head." Grasshopper is turned away with a slammed door when he first turns up cold and hungry. "Hah!... I warned you. You danced and sang all summer, while respectable folk worked hard for a living, and it serves you right." Ah, but Ant has more to him than a hard heart, and his mood and his sleep are now disturbed. The old tale has a new implied moral about empathy and friendship as the two unlikely fellows learn to care for each other when Grasshopper nearly perishes in the snow. The humorous, fluent telling and pictures would pair well with terse Aesop versions and stand on their own, offering especially nice read-aloud fare.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston