There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly: 02/03/08

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly illustrates the song of the same title. It's a song I learned at a variety of summer camps and is probably all these years later still being taught at summer camp.

The song and story is one of many children's songs that has a cumulative structure (like "The House that Jack Built, for example). The original song was written by Alan Mills and Rose Bonne.

For this book, Pam Adams takes each layer of the song and uses it as a layer of illustration. The book has a hole in the center of each page so that the previous animals are visible along with the growling set of lyrics. It's a bit gory considering that it is illustrating the inside of the old lady as she fills herself up with animals.

My son likes the song but thinks the illustrations are "too silly" and sometimes "too weird." My daughter like the silly and brightly colored illustration. She has fun pointing out the different animals inside the old lady and making the appropriate sounds for each. With my two children in mind, I'd put the age range of this book from about 1 to 4, possibly 5.

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