How many kids have livened up a rainy afternoon or a long car trip by singing the innumerable verses of “The Ants Came Marching”? And how often have parents, teachers, or camp leaders been driven slightly mad by tireless renditions of this song?

Bill Richardson, Canada’s beloved raconteur, radio host, and Leacock Prize-winning humorist, gives a new twist to the old song in this giddy picture book. Instead of rather dull ants, we have exceedingly colourful aunts, who are musical as well, and their arrival certainly brightens up the afternoon of Pop and his three children.

As this is a cumulative tale, it begins with the entry of only one aunt – dainty Dot with her big bass drum – but she is rapidly followed by piccolo Pat and sousaphone Sue, then a trio of cymbal-playing aunts, a quartet of trumpeters, and so on. The latter part of each verse gives an onomatopoeic representation of the vigorous, raucous sounds made by each of the different instruments – played with perhaps more enthusiasm than skill.

Cynthia Nugent’s lively pictures of the aunts dance, tumble, and twirl around the words of the song. On the serene first page, Pop is napping contentedly in his hammock, the children and pets playing quietly at his feet. Quiet, however, is banished as the song begins. As each set of instrument-playing aunts arrives and is sent up to the guest room, we see Pop becoming more and more distraught, and the children becoming more and more involved in the musical activity. When the aunts come marching 10 by 10, and then everyone begins to play, conducted by Auntie Gwen, poor Pop marches off in the opposite direction, back to his hammock – but another joke on Pop lurks in the final picture. While the new words for the song are fun on their own, Nugent’s development of the domestic scenes enriches the humour of the book.