A collection of nine humurous short stories about the unusual exploits of different animals. The fifth short story, “The Ant-Eater”, provides a good entry point for poems that can easily be incorporated into the classroom. This poem presents the differences between American and British pronunciation in an unusually witty way. A spoiled American boy begs his parents for an ant-eater as a pet, but mistreats the animal once he gets his way. When the boy’s a(u)nt Dorothy drops by, the starved ant-eater perks up at the sight of this unusually large ‘ant’. Suddenly the pronunciation of certain words can mean life or death…

Poetry · United Kingdom · 1984