“What Do You Think That Kid Should Do?”
Children Across the Country Will Write the Ending to
a Popular Children’s Book, Hey, Little Ant

After 10 years, the children’s picture book Hey, Little Ant will finally get an ending, or rather, thousands of them. Over the next four months, children throughout the nation in Kindergarten through Grade 3 will be invited to draw and write endings to the popular children’s picture book to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of its publication.

Written first as a song in 1992 by Phillip Hoose and his then 9-year-old daughter, Hannah, Hey, Little Ant is a rhyming dialogue staged beneath an upraised shoe. The song’s lyrics became an illustrated picture book six years later when it was published by Tricycle Press. The protagonists of the story are a plucky Ant and the kid about to carelessly squish it. Tension builds as the ant states a compelling case for its survival while the kid’s friends gather round to taunt the kid for hesitating. The final line of the book is a question — “What do you think that kid should do?” — leaving the decision squarely in the hands of the reader.

Because the book asks children to decide the outcome, it has proved to be a widely used “icebreaker” for educators and caregivers to discuss with children everything from bullying to the use of force to the ethical treatment of animals. 

“Hey, Little Ant is a character educator’s best friend,” says Barbara Gruener, an elementary school counselor from Friendswood, Texas. “The two great characters, the mounting tension, and the open-ended question at the end lead naturally to classroom discussion. It’s a little masterpiece. There are entire Web sites dedicated to how to use Hey, Little Ant in the classroom.”
The Hey, Little Ant Essay Challenge was created to honor the conversations educators and parents have been having with children for the last 10 years. With over 100,000 hardcover copies sold and tens of thousands of paperbacks sold through Scholastic Book Clubs, as well as exposure on PBS’s Reading Rainbow program, Phil and Hannah Hoose get a lot of mail from both children and educators sharing their endings and even demanding to know the ending.

“Some kids must think we are holding out on them,” says author Phillip Hoose. “They think that Hannah and I have the right answer and we just won’t give it up. But from the start, Hannah and I both thought the question was way too important and too personal for us to answer. We want readers to think it over and decide for themselves. It is the act of considering that is the book’s real goal.”
The contest, organized through Curious City, a children’s literature advocacy and publicity company, will allow children in Kindergarten through Grade 3 to send e-essays and drawings to answer the book’s final question. Essays submitted through the Web site, www.heylittleant.com, will be judged by a committee of educators. Awards will be given for the most thoughtful answers.
Because of Hey, Little Ant’s reputation as a character education tool, the Hey, Little Ant Essay Challenge has attracted a diverse array of national co-sponsors, including The Friends’ Council on Education, The Woodland Park Zoo, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, The Seidel School of Salisbury University, Tricycle Press and TeachingBooks.net.
“I've always loved the Hooses’ story Hey, Little Ant,” says Patricia Dean, Ph.D., Director of Early Childhood Education at Salisbury University, “and I am really excited about this contest. There's nothing better than to give children an authentic reason to read and write. This contest will engage them in purposeful thinking about social justice and provide an avenue to write and draw to convey their thoughts.”

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For more information visit:
http://www.heylittleant.com/

Or to contact the people quoted in the article:
• Author Phillip Hoose, (207) 874-4931, hoose@gwi.net
• Barbara Gruener, Counselor, Westwood Elementary, Friendswood, TX, (281) 482-3341, bgruener@fisdk12.net
• Patricia K. Dean, Ph.D., Director of Early Childhood Education, Seidel School
Salisbury University, (410) 548-5756, pkdean@salisbury.edu

Or for more information about the Essay Challenge Sponsors:
• Tricycle Press, http://www.tenspeed.com/books/kids.htm
• The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, http://www.childrensmuseum.org/
• TeachingBooks.net, http://www.teachingbooks.net/
• Woodland Park Zoo, http://www.zoo.org/
• Salisbury University, Seidel School of Teacher Education, Salisbury University, http://www.salisbury.edu/seidel/
• Friends' Council on Education, http://friendscouncil.org/