by Moe Zilla

Created on: August 14, 2010

"Once, in a cornfield in Mexico, there lived a little red ant. She shared an anthill with her nine hundred ninety-nine cousins..."

Unfortunately, the little red ant - who doesn't have a name - is smaller than all the other ants, and has trouble keeping up when they file out looking for food. But then the ant spots a tempting crumb from a torta. That's where her troubles begin, since she's not big enough to carry it by herself. She asks a big lizard to help carry the crumb.

Alas, after a short conversation, it turns out the lizard is more interested in making a meal out of the ant! And she doesn't have any better luck at the next stop in her insect neighborhood. (La Arana - the spider - wants to tie her up, like the fly.)  It seemed like a promising idea to ask El Gallo, the rooster. But the rooster wants to eat the little crumb for itself!

There's an obvious lesson in the book - but it's educational in other ways. Author Shirley Climo works in several Spanish words in her retelling of an old Mexican fable. (Besides torta, there's amigos, pronto, and of course, the names of the animals - El Lagarto, La Arana, El Gallo, El Coyote.) Usually the words define themselves, since they're followed almost immediately by their English translation. ("'Hola!' the ant shouted to the coyote. 'Hello!'") At the end of the journey, she requests help from "El Hombre." And that's when the story takes a funny turn...

The man doesn't hear the ant, so she crawls onto his shoelace, and up onto his leg. The man scratches his knee, so the ant crawls up to his shirt. The man scratches his shirt, so the ant climbs to his shoulder. Eventually the ant screams "HELP ME!" into the man's ear.

But the startled man yells "Yi! Ticklebugs!" then tosses his head and runs away across the cornfield.

The illustrations are simple, light watercolors by Francisco X. Mora (who was born in Mexico City). He dedicates the book "para Sergito y Panchito con mucho carinito," and it's nice to think of this story being told to inspire young children in old Mexico. Because the ant reasons that it's scared the man, who scares the coyote, who scares the rooster, who wakes up the sun. "I AM THE STRONGEST OF ALL," the ant concludes.

And then she carries home the crumb by herself!

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