Ant Ventures Wade, Blanche Elizabeth (Illustrated By Harrison Cady) Children's Reading Books (Age 6-12)

8vo. Green boards , with colorful Harrison Cady, titled and double-bordered in black. First edition (no additional printings listed) with the Rand, McNally Company colophon to copyright page.A colorful Harrison Cady paste-on to front board depicts an aproned-and-bonneted mama ant, broom in one of her six "hands" waving so long to her son, Anthony Ant, as he, complete with beribboned hat, valise, road-food basket, happily sets forth on a journey of discovery. ( (The first chapter is entitled: "Around The World For A Change".) Lovely Orange, black and white, silhouetted endpapers (front and rear) showing a parading community of ants, a woolly caterpillar, snake, snail, lizard, spide, bee, frog, and turtle, emerging from a hollow tree named "Hollow Tree Inn". Five lushly colored Harrison Cady illustrations, including the wonderful frontis picture showing Anthony Ant discovering a Beetle sitting on a leaf. Seven full-page drawings, and 21 smaller (partial-page) illustrations. Text is printed on thick, glossy stock which is very supply and largely bright, with just a hint of age-toning to margins. Printed in nice large font-size, with ample margins. Light rubbing to extremities, and a bit of fading to title on front board, where a child's sticker was removed. Slight spine lean. Solidly bound, unusual children's tale of an adventure to seek wisdom and experience. "Once upon a time there was an Ant sitting on a leaf to think. He was tired of working, and his mnother had sent him out to hunt for a little green Worm to stow away in the larder, but he did not want to do even that. . 'I never saw such a stupid world!' he said aloud. 'All there is to do is to carry out the earth all day long, or else go hunting for the family's food, and I'm tired of it all!' " The ant then runs into a Beetle with large horn-rimmed spectacles, a Doctor-Beetle in fact, who wrote the Ant a prescription which he bade the ant take home to his mother, so that she could help make the little ant happy."