It’s an Orange Aardvark!

Acclaimed New York Times-bestselling picture book creator Michael Hall delivers a funny and suspenseful story about colors, ants, aardvarks, and rainbows that will appeal to Lois Ehlert fans and fans of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Another winner from the author of My Heart Is Like a Zoo, Perfect Square, and Cat Tale!

Five carpenter ants at home in their tree stump hear a noise. What is it? One ant thinks it is a hungry aardvark lurking outside the stump, just waiting to eat them. One ant makes a hole in the stump to see. Orange light floods the stump—it’s not an aardvark, proclaims the ant chorus. It’s orange! So what is lurking outside the stump? This very funny picture book features die-cut holes on almost every page, suspenseful page turns, a wonderful surprise ending, and an introduction to a rainbow of colors. It’s an Orange Aardvark! is a tour de force for Michael Hall, the acclaimed and bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo, Perfect Square, and Cat Tale.

Sketches from It’s an Orange Aardvark!

In It’s an Orange Aardvark! a carpenter ant drills a series of holes through a wall in his stump in order to see what’s outside. With each hole, a different color of light enters the dark stump; and with each new color, another ant—who’s convinced himself that a hungry aardvark lurks outside—makes more and more ridiculous suggestions to make the new facts fit his original assumption. I tried a number of different ways to illustrate the light flooding into the stump before settling on a series of painted, overlapping concentric circles.

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Early on, I was enamored with the idea of using simple radiating lines of colored chalk. Too busy!

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Next I tried painting paper and cutting it into shapes—more appealing than the chalk, but I felt it was too stark and lifeless.

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Then, I broke the radiating lines into rectangles and the resulting image felt very energetic to me—like light.

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But it wasn’t quite right, so one day I tried grouping the rectangles in concentric circles, and that became more contained and satisfying.

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The next step was to forgo the rectangles and portray the colors as a series of intersecting circles. I outlined each shape. It seemed right to me.

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In the end, though, I removed the outlines and the resulting circles of color provided a more suitable and simple background for the ants and their story.

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Of course, that was still just another beginning . . . and I confronted the task of painting a hundred pieces of paper!