There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

1.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Taback, Simms. 1997. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. New York, Viking Juvenile. ISBN 0670869392

2.PLOT SUMMARY
There was an old lady who swallowed the fly. No one knew why the old lady swallowed the fly; however, she did not stop. After she swallowed the fly, she swallowed the spider to eat the fly. Then she swallowed a bird to eat the spider. After that, she swallowed a cat to eat the bird. When that was done, she swallowed a dog to get the cat, and then she swallowed a cow to get the dog. Finally, she swallowed a horse that was supposed to get the cow but it ended up taking the life of the lady who swallowed all those insects and animals because of her crazy food choices.

3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The book is an imaginary story which contains some characteristics of a traditional folktale, such as rhymes, simple humor, and repetition. The illustrations were well-designed, and they portrayed humor throughout each page of the book. The interaction between the main character and these small creatures were fun too. The three main strengths I found are the rhyming patterns, sentence structures, character interactions, as well as the colorful funny illustrations.

Rhymes and Sentence structure
The whole story is filled with rhymes and repeating patterns. For instance, in every paragraph, the main sentence is repeated six times, “I don’t know why she swallowed the fly”. The other sentence which appeared at the end of each verse was “perhaps she’ll die”, and it was repeated 5 times. Furthermore, young readers will easily notice the verses and rhymes in each paragraph, such as “That wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her”, where three words in the verse have a similar sound. Examples of other clever rhymes the author used in the story included, fly and die, spider and inside her, cat and that, and how and cow. In addition, I also found there are a lot of comparison sentences with the same basic sentence structure in the story. For instance, she swallowed the cat to catch the bird; she swallowed the bird to catch the spider; and she swallowed the spider to catch the fly. Using these similar sentence structures, young readers should be able to easily follow and memorize the lines. It is like poetry, so children can read the book aloud and sing it as a song.

Interaction and humor
The second strength is the character interaction and humor. The dialogue between the animals and the speaker make the story more attractive and funny. For instance, the dog said “I hope it’s a lie”; the cow said “There’s a tear in my eye”. Young children will find this added dialogue funny and fascinating. The dialogue makes the book more active and alive. Even though I am not a child, I still found myself laughing out loud and thoroughly enjoying the book. Furthermore, the book had small holes over the woman’s stomach showing the insect or animal after the woman had swallowed them. Young children will enjoy looking through the holes to see what was inside the woman’s stomach. They could also guess what the old lady would swallow next. The book creates a lot of interaction among the writer, illustrator, and the audience. Sometime the author expressed other peoples’ thoughts about the old lady, such as why the old lady swallowed the fly; would she die, and would people miss her dearly? The dialogue is based on a folktale first old in the 1940’s and the story made for a good picture book for both adults and children.

Illustrations
Though looking at the illustrations, I found more humor and magic on this book. First of all, I am impressed by the colorful illustrations. I felt so excited by looking at the many different colors the illustrator used in the book. I strongly believe the illustrator designed the art in the book based on children’s perspective because of clothes the old lady wears, the actions she took, and the personification of the animals. Even though these animals were swallowed by the old lady, readers will not be frightened or sad since these animals stayed calm and peaceful with a little confusion showing in their eyes why the old lady want to swallowed them in the first place. The whole book and the illustrations are filled with humorous actions and gestures. For example, on page 4 to 5, the old lady with big starry eyes covered her mouth with one hand and held an umbrella. Later, she unexpectedly wiggled and juggled her body with exaggerated expressions on page 7. All of animals had starry eyes expressing their surprising. Furthermore, the illustrations were well-designed and logically organized. For instance, in the beginning, the old lady looked normal as she swallowed the smaller creatures; however, she became bigger and bigger as she swallowed the larger animals like the cow and the horse. The other thing I noticed was the clues given by the illustrations. As an active storyteller, I would ask children to guess which animal the old lady would swallow next. The illustrator gave audiences a good clue as to what would be swallowed next. For example, on page 16, at the bottom of page, the dog stuck out its tongue and said “I hope it’s a lie”. On the next page, the old lady swallowed the dog. On page 20, the cow was placed in the right bottom corner like the dog had been placed earlier, so naturally, the old lady swallowed the cow on the very next page. The cow on the previous page said “There’s a tear in my eye”, and then on the next page, the cow was swallowed by the old lady. All of the illustrations in the book are funny and colorful.

In summary, both the dialogue and the illustrations in the book are well-designed with children in mind. These strengths were well-represented by the careful and refined creations done by the illustrator. I wish I had more space to write all of strengths I have found in this book. After I read it again and again, I found even more strengths in this book. It is one of the most amazing children’s books I have ever read. Parents and teachers could use this book for play, learning the names of different animal and insects, and language learning.

4.REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
“Here was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” is a Caldecott Honor Book; an ALA Notable Children’s Book, and A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year (Amazon, 2011).

On Amazon.com, the library journal indicated that each page in the book was full of details and humorous asides. According to Kirkus Reviews, it is good fun to watch the old lady bulge and bloat, and the sheer corniness of the verse continues to be deeply gratifying (Amazon, 2011).

When I read this book to my neighbor’s 7 year-old daughter, she loved it! She even told me what the old lady would eat next. She laughed out loud when she heard and saw that a spider was inside the old lady’s and felt it as it wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her. After I read the book to her, she looked at the book over and over again.

5.CONNECTIONS
Last year, I visited a friend who was a retired librarian. She lent her teaching supplies for me to use in my other children’s literacy curriculum course. I saw a toy figurine woman who had a hole in the center of her stomach. Inside of her stomach, she used a transparent plastic bag glued together under the hole. Inside of the plastic bag, there were several creatures, such as a spider, a fly, and a cat. I had not read the famous folktale last year, so I thought it was just like The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I used it to create the story for her grandchildren. Now, I get a chance to read this interesting book which made a connection with my previous experience. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is not a traditional tale, but the framework of the story is similar to Simms Taback’s There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. The difference is the main character is an old lady instead of a caterpillar. The little caterpillar was so hungry, so it kept eating a lot of food each day.

Carle, Eric. 1994. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. New York, Philomel. ISBN 0399226907

I found another Caldecott Medal Book by the same author entitled, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. The book is filled with rhymes and attractive colors similar to the book, There was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.

Taback, Simms. 1999. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. New York, Viking Juvenile. ISBN 0670878553

The other connection book I have found is entitled, Peek-a-boo Who? The book is also created by Taback; however, the book is for earlier readers. It also contained rhymes and repetitive text that made this book interesting for young children to read and play.

Taback, Simms. 2006. Peek-a-Boo Who? New Jersey, Blue Apple Books. ISBN 1593541805

Reference
Amazon. com., accessed Feb 21, 2011, http://www.amazon.com/Very-Hungry-Caterpillar-Eric-Carle/dp/0399226907
Amazon. com., accessed Feb 20, 2011, http://www.amazon.com/There-Lady-Swallowed-Caldecott-Honor/dp/B0009HARWA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298514803&sr=1-2
Bussongs.com, accessed Feb 22, 2011,
http://bussongs.com/songs/there_was_an_old_lady_who_swallowed_a_fly.php
Nursery Rhymes, assessed Feb 22, 2011,
http://www.rhymes.org.uk/there_was_an_old_lady.htm

The article is created on Feb. 23, 2011