Who's Got Game? The Ant of the Grasshopper? By Toni and Slade Morrison, a book review

I love children's books with good rhyme. I love the way it flows off the tongue and the way images come to mind with the rhyme… even if there are no pictures in the book. Of course, I love pictures in picture books. The rhyme in Who's Got Game? The Ant of the Grasshoppper? by Toni and Slade Morrison is not the kind I prefer.

When a children's picture book starts out seeming to have rhyme, I want it to flow through the whole story. The rhyme of this story is stilted and spare. It doesn't steadily flow through the whole.

I kept asking myself, “What's the point of the story? What does the title mean?” Those two questions kept me reading. If not for them, I would have put the book down in aggravation because of the unsteadiness of the rhyme.

Reading the whole story so that I could understand the message of it is worth the frustration I felt about the rhyme. I like that the story ends with a question, rather than telling the audience which choice has the greatest value. In all honesty, the greatest import lies in what a person values most highly.

Presented in comic strip style, the illustrations by Pascal Lemaitre do support the story very well. In fact, they sometimes helped me figure out what the text (odd font) was supposed to say as I read it aloud to my children. And my children enjoy looking at the pages as I read, too, which is helpful to the peaceful environment I'm working to cultivate during our reading times.

If you've read it, tell me what you think of the story AND whether you've already read it already or do after reading this review, tell me which you are more like… the ant or the grasshopper?

As for me… I guess I'm a bit more like the grasshopper, though… working like the ant at it!