There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat...Imagine That!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!

Written by Lucille Colandro

Illustrated by Jared Lee

Scholastic Inc., 2002

30 Pages

Fiction

          I chose this book because I love the There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed… series of books. They are catchy, outrageous, and kids love them! The old lady, as always, swallowed something and we do not know why. In this case she swallowed a bat! She then had to swallow an owl to shush the bat, she swallowed a cat to chase the owl, she swallowed a ghost to catch the cat, and the story continues on, swallowing a goblin, some bones, and then finally a wizard! She did all of this to get the wizard to cast a spell so she could yell, “Trick or treat!”

It appears that Lee uses watercolor and pen for his illustrations for There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! The illustrations are very cartoonish. The setting seems to appear gloomy;  this makes the reader feel like it is dusk, and the sun is about to go down. Lee’s illustrations vary between formal and informal text placement, and also varies between whole page illustrations and framed illustrations. 

This book is great for all elementary school grades! It would be great to use in a language arts lesson on rhyming words or sequencing. What did the old lady eat first, second, third and so on? This book would also be great as an open to a history lesson about Halloween since the items she swallows relate Halloween. Art could be incorporated by having students create their own rendition of the old lady, and they could also write their own There Was an Old Lady Who… story. This book did not receive any awards.