Audiobook of the series published in 2007, audible.com.au (accessed: December 30, 2020).

According to the text on its dust jacket, these books are "more than a play on these beloved fables, Who’s Got Game? is AESOP LIVE!" Toni and Slade Morrison have adapted the well-known tale of the Ant and the Grasshopper to a modern day setting. The gangsta rap associations of the title are underscored by the New York setting, with the city populated by a variety of minibeasts, and the rhyming, rhythmic verse that borrows the intonation patterns of hip hop. The story is recounted in comic book form, with full page illustrations balanced with those with multiple panels. Both the characters’ dialogue and narratorial commentary are inscribed in a cursive, somewhat scrawled font, with occasional words by the effusive Foxy G rendered in large scale block letters for extra emphasis. 

Best friends Foxy G, a grasshopper, and Kid A, an ant, enjoy hanging out in the park together, climbing trees, playing basketball, swimming in the lake and music on the grasshopper’s wings. But as summer comes to an end, Kid A tells his friend that he’s "got to split", as "there’s a lot of work to be done". But Foxy G insists on remaining in the park, to "GROOVE, MOVE, PROVE, DISPROVE". After an awkward scene, Kid A departs to clean the house, does the shopping, and cooks food for his growing family. His heavily pregnant wife watches TV as he stocks their pantry. When winter comes, Foxy G finds himself freezing in his cardboard box home in the snowy park. His delicate wings, his musical instrument, are crumbling in the cold. He battles through the snow to visit his former friend, who stands on the porch of his cosy home, chewing on a doughnut. Desperate but still proud, Foxy G falls to his knees to beg his friend for help: "I quenched your thirst and fed your soul, you can’t spare me a doughnut hole?", but Kid A is unmoved by his pleas, admonishing him for his lack of diligence and foresight. Foxy G counters that he is artist, and that "Art is work, it just looks like play." They argue over the value of creativity, before Kid A slams the door on his former friend. As the shivering, desperate Foxy G walks off into the desolate snow, he wonders aloud:

"His day is darkest when I leave

With all my music up my sleeve.

Name, fame, blame, shame –

The question is: who’s got game?"

The final pages of the book are full page illustrations with no written text. On the first, Kid A, looking troubled, peers out the window at the retreating figure of Foxy G. Christmas presents are piled beneath a lovely tree and his wife continues to watch TV. The facing page looks down from a distance on Kid A’s small cottage on the very edge of the big city. The tiny figure of Foxy G can be seen walking away as the snow drifts down. Over the page, the house and the grasshopper are shown again, but this time inside a snow dome, on a page that is otherwise white and empty. It is labelled with a little golden sign, asking again "Who’s Got Game?" On the very last page, which is covered in falling snow, is a female ladybird, dressed in coat, scarf and boots, and leading a pet ant on a leash. In her hand she holds a much smaller version of the snow dome and is looking it with an expression of wide-eyed concern.

In recent years several children’s writers have adapted Aesop’s Fables with a contemporary, hip hop aesthetic. A decade and a half before Jef Czekaj’s Hip and Hop in the House (2018) and Kay Davenport’s Hip Hop Aesop: The Boy Who Cried Wolf (2018), Toni and Slade Morrison’s trilogy of Who’s Got Game? books borrows the language and intonation of rap music to update and reframe some of Aesop’s best known stories for a new generation of young readers. Traditionally, the fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper promotes the value of hard work over lazy indolence, but this retelling adopts a more ambiguous moral position, celebrating the value and importance of creative pursuits of art, music and storytelling, and inviting readers to question the Ant’s hard-hearted decision to reject his friend. The dustjacket explains the Morrisons’ intentions:

"In our revisions the original stories are opened up and their moralistic endings reimagined: the victim might not lose; the timid gets a chance to become strong; the fool can gain insight; the powerful may lose their grip."

The story’s final pages leave readers to make their own moral assessments of the behaviour of the ant and grasshopper, and the shifts in perspective encourage a flexible and open-ended interpretation. The final revelation that the story’s events are taking place within the microcosm of a snow dome invites reflection on ideas of scale, relativity and our place in the world.

Lemaitre’s line drawings populate New York with a cast of peculiar looking bugs, spiders and other garden creatures, who congregate under the railway overpass and traipse the snow-covered city streets in hats and heavy overcoats. A discordant colour palette of purples, browns and oranges helps to convey the ideological clash between the former friends. The depiction of New York landmarks and cultural icons, including Central Park and Broadway Theatre, adds authenticity to the setting, though subtle intertextual references, such as the title of another of the Morrisons’ collaborations with Lemaitre, The Book of Mean People, featured on a billboard poster, may be missed by younger readers. Similarly, the cursive font is likely to be difficult for some children to decipher. Yet with some adult guidance and support, children are likely to find Who’s Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? an appealing and thought-provoking book.

Ferguson, Rebecca, "Of snakes and men: Toni and Slade Morrison's and Pascal Lemaitre's adaptations of Aesop in Who's Got Game?" MELUS 36. 2 (2011): 53+.