Welcome to the Anthill

Gr 1-3–For this entry in the insect-based “Little Heroes” series, Sekaninová and Dao invite readers into a somewhat scientifically inaccurate anthill (it’s described as a “six-foot-tall mound”) where busy ants with smiling human faces gather provisions in baskets, sweep tunnels with brooms, play records for their queen on a gramophone, and tend to eggs out of which hatch new queens, more workers, and ants sporting mustaches and little blazers. Sekaninová does not always adhere to scientific fact; for instance, the book’s young male ants go off to start or take over another anthill after breeding with their queens, instead of dying, as actually happens. An earlier book by the author, 2024’s The Secret World of Ants, has a few cutesy bits of its own but overall offers young audiences a more reliable picture of her six-legged subject’s lives and life cycles than this latest work.