The Grasshopper and the Ants Learn From Each Other

In the 1998 Pixar movie A Bug’s Life, the members of a colony of hardworking ants are routinely bullied into giving most of their carefully collected food to a thuggish grasshopper and his cronies. Decades earlier, Disney presented another story about diligent ants and a lazy grasshopper. In the 1934 Silly Symphony The Grasshopper and the Ants, the larger insect is not cruel, just irresponsible. Though the ants warn him to prepare for the harsh winter weather to come, he continues on his merry way until he is forced to concede that they are right and that he should have spent some of his time getting ready.

The book version of Disney’s take on this ancient fable was written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Larry Moore. The paintings have a drab and rather fuzzy look about them. It certainly looks like a throwback to an earlier time in animation. The grasshopper is a jolly soul with bright, enormous eyes and a wide smile. He wears a red shirt and a green jacket that matches his green top hat, and he plays his fiddle merrily, inviting anyone he meets to join in his revelry. The ants are a bit less distinctive; they are black with brown legs, and many of them wear no clothes at all. Those who do mostly wear only a hat or bow; the queen in her regal pink gown and golden crown is the only one fully dressed.

In the original version of the story, after the grasshopper fails to heed the warnings of the ants, winter catches him by surprise and he appeals to the well-stocked ants for mercy, asking them for food and shelter, but they coldly turn him away. The moral appears to be that it is best to prepare for lean times instead of spending all your days goofing off, but the ants’ lack of charity rankles, so it’s hard to really see their industry as a great virtue under the circumstances.

In Disney’s version, the ants have more sympathy for their foolish friend, so instead of simply leaving him out in the cold to freeze and starve to death, they invite him in and he has the opportunity to repent, make amends and turn over a new leaf. In the original version, I think that while the grasshopper is too lackadaisical, the ants are too harsh. Disney offers a better balance, showing that it is important to work hard but that life is also to be enjoyed and that kindness to one’s neighbors is as high a virtue as dedicated self-sufficiency.

The Disney short includes a song that the grasshopper sings, and that appears in the book as well, though of course, you have to imagine the melody as he sings. The World Owes Me a Living is the name of the song, and it’s rather obnoxious, at least until he changes his tune. The lyrics were written by Larry Morey, but most of the words in the book are Brown’s. A prolific writer of children’s books, she moves the story along artfully, a few sentences at a time. The narration and dialogue is set apart in brown boxes, with the illustrations either taking up a full page or a large portion of the page, set against a white backdrop.

With the new year upon us, we are now in the midst of the winter in which this book concludes, or at least I am in Pennsylvania. I can never quite decide if I am the grasshopper or the ant. I’d like to think I have a pretty decent work ethic and that I manage my resources wisely, but I also spend a lot of time in leisurely pursuits. I think the key is to stick to neither extreme. Be more like the cricket, known for its merry music but associated with the making of sound moral decisions. In the end, in this more optimistic version of Aesop’s classic, the grasshopper comes to appreciate the value of hard work and the ants recognize the worth of merrymaking. All of them are able to appreciate that giving of yourself and letting your efforts bless others carries the sweetest rewards of all.

A Sleepyside Antique Pulls a Vanishing Act in Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper

I started reading the Trixie Belden teen mystery series in January. When I glanced through a list of titles to see what was coming up, one that really leaped out at me was The Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper. “Phantom grasshopper???” I wasn’t sure just what that meant, and I looked forward to solving the mystery of what exactly a phantom grasshopper was. And how would just a small insect provide enough intrigue to sustain an entire novel? I have finally read this 18th volume in the series, which was written by a ghostwriter under the name of Kathryn Kenny, and I now have the answer to that question.

Phantom Grasshopper is another hometown mystery for the Bob-Whites, who had some pretty wild out-of-town adventures in volumes 11 through 15 before settling down to more ordinary exploits in Sleepyside, NY. This time around, 14-year-old Trixie, her best friend Honey, Trixie’s older brothers Brian and Mart, Honey’s adopted older brother Jim and their neighbors Dan and Di are back in school after a seemingly endless summer, and they’ve made the acquaintance of Miss Lawler, a young woman who is helping out with history classes by showing off the coin collection in her care. Kind but reclusive, she seems as though she may have a secret of two to hide.

Thanks to that coin collection, this book incorporates the word numismatist, which is another term for a coin collector. It’s one of several interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout the novel, which also includes references to Benjamin Franklin, old-timey music and a movie that I can only assume is King Kong. In addition to having my favorite title in the series, Phantom Grasshopper also boasts what may be my favorite chapter title: A Squirrel Gives a Clue. Given my lifelong fascination with those bushy-tailed creatures, that one gave me a big smile.

As someone who doesn’t drive, the discussion of the peculiarities and challenges involved with being an adult non-driver struck a chord with me, and as someone who has always wanted a tree house, I loved seeing the “see-crud” arboreal hangout belonging to Trixie’s little brother Bobby. It also made me happy to see that Regan, the horse expert who works for Honey’s parents and is my favorite regular side character in the series, has a fairly large role to play here, mostly because of an adorable little horse named Mr. Pony who he is teaching Bobby how to ride.

The mystery itself does not, rather to my disappointment, involve an actual grasshopper but rather a local artifact in the shape of a grasshopper that disappears after a wicked storm. Trixie’s fondness for this piece of local history drives her interest, which leads to an investigation as well as a chance for the Bob-Whites to take to the radio in an appeal to help them find the missing Hoppy. The intensity of her investment in this object seems a little goofy, especially since it hasn’t come up in previous books, but then it does seem in her nature to throw herself wholeheartedly into things once she has latched onto them.

Unlike with some of the books in this series, nothing in the writing style really stood out to me. The characters seem themselves, and there seems to be a good balance of dialogue and narration, but the quirkiest thing about the book is the title object. It’s not an especially memorable entry, and none of the dialogue particularly jumped out at me as being quote-worthy. Still, I found the story fun, and it has some moments of real peril. While I think the book is ultimately a bit more mundane than the oddball title suggests, it still offers an excellent chance to see the Bob-Whites at work on their home turf.