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 Two Bad Ants | |
| Author | Chris Van Allsburg |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Chris Van Allsburg |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
Publication date | 1988 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 32 pp |
| ISBN | 0-395-48668-8 |
| Preceded by | The Z Was Zapped |
| Followed by | Just a Dream |
Two Bad Ants is a 1988children's book written and illustrated by American authorChris Van Allsburg.
The title characters, while journeying through a human home, decide to exploit asugar bowl—full ofsugar cubes—on their own rather than taking one sugar cube for themselves like the colony's queen (so each of the ants get one sugar cube and so does the queen ant). The two ants decide that instead of taking one sugar cube for themselves (like the other ants) and leave for their ant hill, they will live in the sugar bowl forever and "eat the tasty treasure forever". But during daylight, the ants are shoveled up by a giant sugar bowl spoon. They experience misadventures: they land in a cup of coffee (after a giant spoon shovels up the sugar cubes into thecoffee and gets the ants out), almost get toasted on anEnglish muffin (after mistaking it for a giant disc—a "hiding place disc"—with holes), fall into a sink, get threatened by itsgarbage disposal unit, and are nearly electrocuted when they enter an electric outlet. Chastened, they rejoin a line of ants carrying sugar cubes back to the colony.
InPhilip Nel's analysis, a conflict between the book's plot and its illustrations leads to artistic tension. While the ants' return to the colony suggests "a victory for the bosses" and the narrative could be considered a "capitalistparable", the comparatively huge appliances in the kitchen, which terrify the ants, implyconspicuous consumption. Nel likens the book's resulting ambiguity to the works ofMagritte.[1]
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