Book Review: Hey Little Ant!

By Phillip and Hannah Hoose

Kid:

Hey, little ant down in the crack,

Can you hear me? Can you talk back?

See my shoe, can you see that?

Well now it’s gonna squish you flat!

 Ant:

Please, oh please, do not squish me,

Change your mind and let me be,

I’m on my way with a crumb of pie,

Please, oh please, don’t make me die!

And so begins “Hey, Little Ant”, the wonderful perspective taking story by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. The whole book continues this back-and-forth dialogue between a kid and an ant. The kid desperately wants to step on the ant – he even has a whole list of reasons. The ant, of course, wants to save his own life by convincing the kid not to squish him.

The book brings up all sorts of questions about perspective. How do the little things that we do each day affect those around us? Does something as small as stepping on ant even matter? By looking at it from the ant’s perspective, we see that there’s more than one side to the story.

This is a great book for introducing perspective taking with kids. You can follow it up with questions such as,

“What are some of the boy’s reasons for squishing the ant? Are they good reasons?”

 “Are there some things that you can do but that you shouldn't do, because they might hurt someone else?”

 “Are there some things that if you stopped and thought about it, you might change your mind?”

 “Should the boy squish the ant?”