Getting Antsy! Ants (Just Like Us!) by Bridget Heos

DID YOU KNOW that ants have been farming far longer than humans? And that in addition to raising crops. they herd (and "milk") animals? In these and other ways, ants are just like us. Ants are ANT-astic!

Ants build roads and tunnels, bridges and boats, and houses of dirt or of leaves. And ants are awesome and legendarily hard workers.

In fact, as soon as they are of their larvae diapers, they help feed the colony. As soon as they can, they are put right to work babysitting the larvae, bathing them, and (spoiler warning) gathering their spit-up and sometimes their poop (euphemistically called manna) as food for workers and queen alike. Later, the young workers graduate to outside duty, gathering and harvesting food for their siblings and acting as garbage collectors to keep the nest sanitary.

It's a dirty job, but somebuggy's got to do it.

Unlike some kids, ants are awesome at staying in line, but human kids will be glad they don't do it by following the scent trail laid down by the abdomen of their line leader! While some workers dally at the dairy, milking aphids, other workers even morph into soldier ants, with some species getting so big and strong that they make The Hulk look puny. But like humans, when the army ants lose a battle, the colony has to evacuate, Queen Ant, eggs, larvae and all, and become refugees, making a run for safety, leaving the spoils for the victors.

THIS MEANS WAR!

Bridget Heos' forthcoming Just Like Us! Ants (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) plays upon the similarities between ants and people. Both are social animals that care for their young, with job classifications that make use of their size, age, and energy to maintain their cities. Heos' text is organized into double-page sections, each of which covers a subject such as care of the young or bridge-and boat-building. David Clark's illustrations feature funny, anthropomorphic ants--armored ants with swords and shields, queen ants with baby buggies loaded with larvae, and fruit fly chasers wielding itsy bitsy butterfly nets--dotted with humorous colored drawings of Rube Goldburg gizmos to brew up baby larvae drool for worker baristas to stir up into smoothies for off-duty workers to sip at a cafe bar. The many awesome aspects of antdom are all there in Heos' new book in the Just Like Us series, augmented with the added attraction of a glossary ("Say What?"), and a bibliography for those assigned research reports that come along in the elementary grades.

Science writer Bridget Heos is also the author of Stronger Than Steel: Spider Silk DNA and the Quest for Better Bulletproof Vests, Sutures, and Parachute Rope (Scientists in the Field Series) (see review here) and Shell, Beak, Tusk: Shared Traits and the Wonders of Adaptation. (review here)