ANTics


Children - Grade 4th-6th
136 Pages
Reviewed on 07/21/2012
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Dakota Douglas was born and grew up in Newcastle, North-East England. She is a retired newspaper reporter, now following her childhood dream of being a novelist.
As a kid she read books under the bedclothes by torchlight. Now she dives under the covers, torch in hand, to scribble down conversations between her book characters in case she forgets them in the morning. She has written stories since she was about eight years old. She wrote them on a toy typewriter and her dad did the illustrations.
When she wasn't pounding on her typewriter, she was found smashing a tennis ball against the brick end of a block of garages beside her home. For hours on end she perfected her lob, backhand and forehand shots - all the time spinning stories in her head.
She gets inspiration for her stories from dreams. ANTics, her first novel, is a story for children, aged seven plus. It's based on a dream after watching a group of ants carry a potato crisp back to their nest.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Author Anna del C. Dye for Readers' Favorite

This is a really cool story about a kingdom of ants whose inhabitANTS have the most creative names I have ever seen. This intriguing and fun story is quite refreshing, and a cute concept for the children’s market. "ANTics" is a well-done tale that will enchant boys and girls in elementary school and some older kids too. "ANTics" is a great written work that will teach love, friendship and unity to our kids. These are values that many children don’t have these days when parents don’t have the time to teach them. The story starts when one ant named ExuberANT is trying to take a short cut on his way to his friend, BrilliANT's, who awaits impatiently on the other side. He chooses to disobey orders and crosses the human family’s patio where many other ants have found death under the shoes of the two-footed people. He learned that day that rules are placed for a good reason.

But that isn’t what the book is about. The story gets better when these two ants befriend a lonely, small, picked-on ant by the name HesitANT. Between the three, they get in trouble by making their deathly enemy, RepugnANT, mad. He is a huge magical spider. The beast is cruel, strong, and deadly. The three friends are chased, trapped, and almost drowned in the pages of this book, all the way to a very interesting end — where you will find the real hero in the story.

"ANTics" has all the important ingredients to make it a favorite of parents, teachers, and children alike. I recommend it for any private or public library. Excellent work.

Lee Ashford

“ANTics” by Dakota Douglas is a charming story about life in InhabitANT, as experienced and related to us by three young cadets, ExuberANT (Zube), BrilliANT (Brill) and HesitANT (no nickname). On a food gathering expedition these three young friends were ambushed by the horrible, ferocious, and stinky spider, RepugnANT, otherwise known as “Puggy”… but not to his face. Their journey is filled with excitement, sometimes aided by ElegANT the butterfly, PleasANT the earthworm, or other friendlies in Badger’s Hollow. Their journey is also filled with frightening events, such as when they hide from Puggy in the house of Mrs. Fairweather, only to find themselves caught in another spider’s web! The three friends eventually wind up lost, afloat on a log in a large lake (a twig in a mud puddle), with no way to get home, and no idea which way home is! Meanwhile, Puggy is closing in on the trio. Will this be the end for our intrepid explorers? Or will the occupANTs of InhabitANT be able to help our heroes in time?

This story was very enjoyable to read. Ant puns abound, and add significANTly to the humor throughout the story, even though some are real groaners (like the one I just did). It surprised me to learn that I could actually feel concern for ants, and harbor resentment toward a spider! The author really accomplished quite a remarkable feat, developing insect characters that the reader would actually care about! Another thing Dakota did was to end the story in an interactive way, inviting the young readers for whom this story is written to suggest a new, more appropriate name for HesitANT, and/or to write a short “news report” of the final results of the day’s events. This story is well worth reading, either by kid to kids, or even for the enjoyment of an adult. I recommend getting this first episode of an ant’s life in Badger’s Hollow. Then just curl up on the couch, and enjoy the story.