The Little Red Ant and the Great Big Crumb
Reading level: Ages 4-8,Kindergarten-Grade 36The poor little red ant! Of the thousand of ants that live in her anthill in a cornfield in Mexico, she is the smallest of all. So when she finds a huge crumb of delicious torta (cake), she sets off to find someone to carry it back home for her. Though she is the smallest, the little red ant is also pretty savvy. She doesn't get too close to the long-tongued lizard, or stray into the spider's web. By the time she scares a man away from the cornfield, the little red ant has figured out the moral of this Mexican version of an old fable retold by Shirley Climo and illustrated by Francisco Mora (Clarion Books, 1995): "You can do it if you think you can." Spanish words in the text are understandable in context, but a glossary is also included. Lively background music throughout enhances the tale. Reader Diego Arciniegas varies the voices so each character is distinct. This enjoyable tale has page-turn signals on one side of the cassette and narration only on the other.6.