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With just a few weeks of summer left, it’s time to highlight a couple of books with a seasonal bent that may bring back memories of sunnier days once we’re buried in snow again and cooped up inside.

There Are No Ants in This Book
By Rosemary Mosco
Illustrated by Anna Pirolli
Tundra Books
Ages 4 to 8

Picnics always remind me of summertime, parks and backyards, family gatherings, food to eat outdoors and, inevitably, ants attracted by that food. Like me, the youngster who narrates the text in this wonderfully illustrated, colourful picture book does not welcome the admittedly hard-working little critters. In fact, she has chosen to inhabit Rosemary Mosco’s book because the title — and Anna Pirolli’s opening two-page illustration of a peaceful, grassy field — assures her that it’s the perfect place for a picnic.

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There she is, peeking out of the top left-hand corner of that two-page spread. Turn the page and our bespectacled narrator appears in full regalia — wearing a striped T-shirt, shorts, sandals and a bucket hat, toting bags and an overflowing picnic basket. “See, there are no ants in this book,” she tells us, drawing us in. “It says so on the cover! Ants love to eat picnic food, and I do not want to share.”

Spreading a cloth on the grass and laying out the contents of her picnic basket (which, surprisingly, include a massive layer cake and a pot of steaming tea), she adds: “Yes, there are no ants here. / Zero. / Zip. / None.” But sharp-eyed readers will spot, in the lower right-hand corner of this two-page illustration, a little voice that responds: “Wrong! There’s one.” Turn the page and we discover an ant — an acorn ant, to be exact — that lives inside an acorn nestled in the grass.

And here’s where things take a lively, rollicking turn as this becomes an amusing and unusually informative counting book that identifies 10 kinds of ants. Highly recommended, it’s bound to appeal to young and old alike.

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Gamerville
Written and illustrated by Johnnie Christmas
HarperAlley, an imprint of HarperCollins
Ages 8 to 12

There are no ants in Johnnie Christmas’s graphic novel for middle-grade readers, but there are plenty of elements that will interest any youngster who’s fond of video games. (Having never played such games myself, I had to ask a friend to explain the meaning of RPGs and NPCs — i.e., role-playing games and non-player characters.)

When this book opens, its central character, Max, has qualified for the semifinals (and later, the finals) of the annual Gamerville Video Game Tournament. But his mother, worried about her son’s obsession and growing isolation, has enrolled him in summer camp — where electronic devices are forbidden and internet is unavailable. Unfortunately, his time at camp will coincide with the tournament. But he discovers tournament and camp flank the same lake; adventures ensue, rivalries are dealt with, and Max ends up with new friends and shared interests.

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