Ant and Bee: A Bromance

ANT AND BEE was the first book of the original Ant and Bee set, first published in England in the late 1950's, early 60's It introduces the young reader to a variety of bright red three-letter words as Ant, Bee and their friend, Kind Dog, get themselves into a rollicking series of very silly scrapes.

ANT AND BEE, An Alphabetical Story for TIny Tots by Angela Banner. York: Franklin Watts. Undated. Probable First US Edition. Printed in England by Fleming and Humphreys. Delightfully illustrated by Bryan Ward. Hardcover. 5x4 inches. A somewhat worn copy of this scarce and very collectible alphabet book. Whitish areas of surface wear, rubbing to corners and edges of boards and tapping to head and tail. A bit loose at inner hinges. Lettering on cover clear and black. A Good+. Inside illustrations and text bright, a Very Good, except for two pages that were folded at corners and a few light orange crayon marks on one page and the back endpaper. The words "Ant and Bee" are pencilled in a child's printing beneath the text, "This story is all about an [fill in the blank]."  For more info: oldinkincbooks.com.

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MORE ANT AND BEE is the second volume in the Ant and Bee series. It builds upon Ant and Bee's collection of three-letter words with a very British, quirky selection of four-letter words, highlighted in red. The story begins with Ant and Bee imbibing pink lemonade in the garden beneath a hot sun. Ant remarks that he's so hot, he feels like a boiled egg--and before you know it, the two friends are embarking upon their first four-letter word, a boat that sets sail for their second four-letter word, Asia. After nearly being thrown off the boat to sleep with the fish, they're shipwrecked on an isle. After close encounters with a king, a fairy and other unlikely island inhabitants, Ant hitches a ride to England on Bee's back, where they queue up (five letters!) to board Tram Number One (introducing the word "unit") which conveys them to a typically depressing British housing estate where, undaunted, the two celebrate a jolly Xmas. Ant and Bee are last seen happily exploding a holiday cracker.

MORE ANT AND BEE, Another Alphabetical Story by Angela Banner. New York: Franklin Watts Limited. Undated. Probable 1st US Edition, printed by Straker Brothers Ltd., London. Illustrated by Bryan Ward. Hardcover. 5x4 inches. VG+. Faint rubbing to corners and head and tail of spine. Tiny whitish spot on cover. Tight and square. Vividly colored both inside and out. A lovely copy of a scarce book. More info: oldinkincbooks.com.

MORE AND MORE ANT AND BEE is a companion book to Ant and Bee and More Ant and Bee. It extends the reader's vocabulary to a bizarre array of five-letter words, which are, like the three- and four-letter words, highlighted in red. In this story, trusty Ant and Bee are asked by a mother and father to entertain their little girl while they go off to buy her secret presents. The first game the inventive insects devise involves an arrow (!) and a Yew tree. Intrepid Ant and Bee grab a ride on the speeding arrow, but they fall off right onto a slice of buttered bread. What a mess! When the arrow disappears over a fence, there ensues a hunt for the errant projectile during which Ant, Bee and the child discover a jewel from India, encounter an uncle who has a flat wheel and plays the viola, and are chastened by a mysterious nurse who seems to materialize out of thin air to prevent the little girl from using a knife to cut up a lemon and an onion which makes the nurse cry! Strangely, the  mother and father never return with those secret presents, but most children will be so caught up in the boundless nonsense, they'll have forgotten all about them.

MORE and MORE ANT and BEE, Another Alphabetical Story by Angela Banner. New York: Franklin Watts. 1963. Second printing of the 1962 First US Edition. Illustrated by Bryan Ward. Hardcover. 5x4 inches. A bright, square, tight copy with negligible rubbing at corners of the boards, Near Fine inside and out. A very appealing little rare book. For more information: oldinkincbooks.com.

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ONE, TWO, THREE WITH ANT AND BEE, in which Ant and Bee learn to count from 1 to 10. Hallelujah! Now they can take a break from their surrealistic lives! But no. All it takes is a short flight to the market to buy 1 little lettuce, 2 little tarts, 3 bananas and so on, plus a gross miscalculation of how much weight Bee can safely assume, to send poor Ant plummeting to earth in a hail of, count'em, 10 food items. Ant winds up in bed swathed in bandages from his scape to his gasket. However, all is not lost, because Bee turns out to be a devoted nurse who props Ant up with 4 plump pillows, and there are (wait for it) 10 visitors, including Kind Dog of the indefatigable nose and 6 rather sneaky ladybugs. Soon Ant is sitting on a treasure trove of 5 bags of sweets, 3 little toy aeroplanes, and 2 toy soldiers. Children will not only learn to count, they will thoroughly enjoy this "sick day" from heaven.

ONE, TWO, THREE WITH ANT AND BEE, A Counting Story by Angela Banner. New York: Franklin Watts. 1962. Third Impression. Illustrated by Bryan Ward. Hardcover, 5x4 inches. Bright, square, tight copy  with almost unnoticeable rubbing at tail of spine and one corner. Yellow cover is slightly dingy. Near Fine. For more information, go to oldinkincbooks.com.

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AROUND THE WORLD WITH ANT AND BEE. A geography lesson in which Ant gives Bee a gift Bee adores: an umbrella. When a gust of wind carries the beloved object away, the two friends set out on a grand quest. Lured by false promises, beset by disappointments and yet somehow still hopeful, Ant and Bee chase down that umbrella all over the globe, making stops in many countries.  Hearing about an umbrella in Russia, they make the arduous journey, only to find a clown whose magic umbrella rains only from underneath. They follow a lead to America and are saddened to see for themselves that the Statue of Liberty is holding up, not Bee's umbrella, but a torch (although, admittedly, the two things look very similar). In Japan, while they're delighted by the paper parasols, it's just not the same as a good, stout, British brelly. In the end, they find the umbrella right back in London, where's it's under glass at the British Museum as the "World's Smallest Umbrella."

Around the World with Ant and Bee by Angela Banner. London: Edmund Ward. 1964 Reprint. Illustrated by Bryan Ward. Hardcover, pale peach cloth. 5x4 inches. Very Good condition: tight, square, with a small amount of rubbing at edges, corners and along the front joint. Front board slightly grubby-looking with one small white rub next to the N in ANT, but all lettering and illustrations clear and strong. Tiny orange spot on rear board. For more information, go to oldinkincbooks.com.

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ANT AND BEE AND KIND DOG. With ANT AND BEE AND KIND DOG, Angela Banner uses the convention of a children's ABC to make a point about the futility of all animal (and human) striving in the face of an indifferent universe. Opening her story with a definitive statement about nothingness, "Clean air cannot be seen," she leads us on yet another grand quest with Ant, Bee and Kind Dog, this time in search of a mysterious smell. On their way, they are joined by a camel, a koala, a duck and an owl, all of whom abandon their own individual journeys in order to answer the question, "What is that smell?" The anticlimax comes when the entire troupe traverses a long jetty all the way to the end, and, without so much as looking into the water, turn around and come back again. This cannot be a simple matter of wanting to teach children how to spell "jetty." The pilgrims are nearly overcome by a torrential rain AND a blizzard of snow, after which the mysterious smell is gone. Washed away. In a crescendo of irony, the animals then go to the Zoo and ask to be let into their cages. The book closes with Ant, Bee and Kind Dog still struggling to understand what the smell in the air had been. Had it been hot bread? Cut grass? Seaweed? Smoke? Hot Chocolate? "But Kind Dog just could not remember."  In this I hear echoes of John Keats' famous Ode: "Fled is that music--Do I wake or sleep?"  Ant. Bee… Nightingale?

ANT AND BEE AND KIND DOG, An Alphabetical Story by Angela Banner. New York: Franklin Watts Inc. First US Edition, 1963. Hardcover, 5x4 inches, in green cloth. Very Good condition, boards slightly dingy but tight and square, with slight rubbing at corners & minor tapping at tail of spine. A few small spots on title page, otherwise interior is perfect. For more information, go to oldinkincbooks.com.