Ant and Bee: Bryan Ward Filling in the Picture

 When I started my search for Angela Banner a number of years ago, I was thwarted in my attempts to find out any information about the illustrator of the Ant and Bee books. This became even more frustrating when they started republishing the Ant and Bee books with truncated text and absurdly simplistic new illustrations. I would periodically wonder and wander again with no luck. However, I was urged on again when someone commented on my first post about having a Bryan Ward illustration and wanting to know more about him .... so the quest resumed, with great success this time!

Ant and Bee Lovers: Sighting and Citings on the Web

Given my interests in discovering more about Angela Banner and in wondering why new editions of her books are so bowdlerized, I thought it would be fun just to search and see what other scraps of food there are on the Internet for Ant and Bee lovers.

So, just browsing and finding:

Death of Angela Banner

Given my earlier posts about Angela Banner and the Ant and Bee books, it is only right that I should also memorialize her (belatedly) with links to articles about her death on May 30, 2014.

First, as befitting of the paucity of information about her, my first hit of "new" material in my periodic internet wandering is an expression of exasperation from alt.obituaries:

"I can't believe I can't find a more formal obit!" 

Second, that is it. I could find nothing more than the same piece from FindaGrave.com written by her niece, so check it out and may Angela Banner rest in peace.

Oh My, What Have They Done?! Republished Ant and Bee Books Have New Pictures and Rewritten Text!

Following up on their reappearance, I just got my first views of the three Ant and Bee books being republished by Egmont Books. I could understand that there would be new covers, and I won't really fault these stripey things:

No, the real problem comes with some sneak previews you can get by registering at http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/ and reading about the books. The first hint that something is amiss when you read: "This classic from the 1950's has been lovingly re-illustrated by the author Angela Banner to provide a fun, contempory story"(emphasis added) and "Original author and creator Angela Banner has re-illustrated the book". What, the elusive, now almost 90-year old Angela Banner has done new drawings?! And for More and More Ant and Bee, it says "Ant and Bee are back in this brand new story!" How is a book that first came out in 1961 a "brand new story?!

Ant and Bee Big Buy Bag

Wonderful news, Ant & Bee fans. I have found a copy of the Ant & Bee Big Buy Bag, via Interlibrary Loan and have take some pictures. Once you see it you realize why there may be none around--several pages are made to be cut up and others colored or played with. The overall "bag" measures 11 1/2" square and the interior pages are somewhat smaller.

There is almost no information about this, but you can see all the pages in this Google Photos album (click on slide show if you like).

Ant and Bee: The Mystery of the Disappearance of the Books and the Invisibility of Angela Banner

The Ant and Bee books which we came across when our children were young became a staple of our reading to them and their early reading. However, when you try to discover them today--in the real world or the virtual world--they are gone, and the scant information that I had found about their author Angela Banner is even more scant. I have Internet wandered a number of times over the years, but this time I will capture my wonderment:

[If you come here not knowing who Ant and Bee are, check out this one bookseller's nice page with pictures and story summaries of a few of the 13 books in the full series.]

Instead of Google, I start today with Wikipedia. Guess what? Angela Banner does not exist as an article at all! Not a single keystroke of biography. All that exists is a listing of the 13 Ant & Bee books with a very short introduction. Obviously, both of these can be easily remedied by editing but my focus today is rather on this search. So, on to Google.

First, do we go for finding Angela Banner or her books? I opt for the author, and luckily get a hit on someone's efforts--"The unOfficial Ant and Bee Homepage". Nothing about Angela Banner, but I do learn that Ant and Bee books are to be re-released in the UK. The note is dated January 28, 2008, but following the link to Amazon.co.uk they are taking orders for two books coming out in 2013! [In, US, you can preorder: Ant & Bee and More & More Ant & Bee.] [Caution: Added August 1, 2013: Read this!] Otherwise, this page has links to short personal memories of the books and to pictures and brief paragraphs on Ant, Bee, and Kind Dog, the principal animal characters in the books.