I know an old lady who swallowed a fly. But, I rather eat pie.
A nice and kinder version of an old classic. A story that you can sing it. Beautiful pictures.

Thanks to Netgalley, I have given an honest review of I Know an Old Lady by Edward Miller.

This is a funny book where a lady swallows a fly and continues on to bigger things throughout the book. This will have your children laughing.

Review: A revamped version of the Little Old Lady. Bright colored illustrations show an Old Lady at tea time, but what she eats might surprise you. Rhyming verses and the Old Lady's ever-expanding stomach will be sure to make littles laugh out loud!

Note: I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher via NetGalley. My review is my own.

Good fun sequential rhyming nonsense tale! Well and simply illustrated as well. Fun for the reader and the listener!

Illustrations are great, and while the change to the ending to make it more kid-friendly is honorable, it perhaps leaves the story unresolved. It might perhaps have been better to just add an entirely new ending to resolve the dilemma. At any rate, lots of fun.

This is now my daughter's absolute favorite book now. Ever since I read it she has asked me to read it at least twice a night each night. We both had so much fun reading the book, and making it into a song. The illustrations were amazing and humorous.

This was such a fun take on the old favorite Old Lady story. As a parent and teacher I loved the visuals, the tactile element with the cut outs and the repetition in text that builds across the story. Great practice with animal vocabulary, sequencing and rhyming. I loved how each repetition ended with a different rhyme- why, pie, goodbye - to further practice important phonemic awareness skills. This would be a great addition to our preschool classroom library.

This was a fun quick read - a modern twist on an old classic. The illustrations were a lot of fun and I bet it's even more awesome in the physical format with all the cut-out elements.

Cute silly read.

A cute version of an old classic. Nice pictures and parents and children alike will enjoy reading this, especially together.

This was a fun updated story that I used to read and sing with my own children. It was a coincidence that my granddaughter's class had spent a few days with the story, singing it, making puppets etc. I loved that this old lady does not die like in the old version. The illustrations are cute, the song is fun and we really enjoyed this one. In fact, we read it and sang it for several days while I did homeschooling with her. I recommend this one.

As an early years teacher, I am keen to preserve traditional nursery rhymes. The rhyme and rhythm are important foundations for early literacy. However, some of the verses are problematic in their subject matter with outdated terms. This re-writing of the familiar 'there was an old lady' verse removes the end line - perhaps she'll die and replaces it with alternative endings that a modern parent or teacher will feel perfectly comfortable reading. This is done without altering the silliness and original context of the rhyme. The illustrations are bright and captivating with lots of detail. I think this book will be a big hit with my class.

Was a cute take on an old favorite. My godson loved it and made me read it 3 times in one night. He is ready to open his piggy bank and go to the store to buy it now. He is not a huge story book reader so this is a rave review.

I know an Old Lady is a classic. The story follows an old lady who swallows many crazy animals in order to catch the previous creature that she swallowed. The story is an easy one to follow and the illustrations are perfect for the age group.

Would I recommend this book to a friend?
Yes!

I liked the illustrations more than the story. They were so beautiful! I usually like any "remake" of the I Know an Old Lady books but this one was just a miss for me. I'm sure many children will still enjoy it and laugh. Although, it does leave you hanging at the end. It doesn't end like the others where all the contents of her stomach are out.

I have always loved this story and believe that the cutout version which shows an ever expanding stomach will be a hit with little kids. The traditional and then she'll die is substituted with different phrases all ending in a rhyme with the word fly. The cartoonish illustrations are fun and the old lady is entertaining with her cup and cake.


I received an ARC from Fox Chapel Books/Happy Fox Books through NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book. I am voluntarily submitting this review and am under no obligation to do so.

5/5 stars

Genre: Children's Fiction

Description:

***PLEASE NOTE: The white blobs in the book represent a cut in the page where the items in the lady's stomach will appear. It is showing the growing items inside the old lady. This is not a printing error, This was made for physical books, not digital. Thank you for your understanding!***An updated and slightly different take on a classic folk song “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” with a new, kid-friendly ending, I Know an Old Lady is a humorous picture book for children featuring the iconic old lady that can’t stop eating the strangest things! With memorable lyrics, absurd illustrations, and die-cut elements that gradually build and build upon each other until the old lady’s stomach is filled with bizarre objects, from a small fly all the way up to a horse, this silly children’s book of a timeless tale will delight both kids and parents alike!

Pros:

- My preschool students absolutely adore Old Lady Books.
- The artwork is whimsical and fun.
- Changes the original wording: "perhaps she'll die/cry" to a much more kid-friendly, "do you know why?" and things like that.
- I adore the hands-on elements of this story. While I read the digital version, I know those elements would help keep littler kids engaged in the story.

Cons:

- The kids did have a lot of questions unanswered by the ending. Like how she got all of those animals out of her belly. However, that kept them talking about the book.

Would I recommend it?

Yes!

This is the cutest update to a classic story. The illustrations are also so well done and the rhymes are so well thought out!

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. My students love ALL the versions of "There Was an Old Lady." This one is pretty much like the classic one. THANK YOU for the kid-friendly ending--which I won't spoil here! This book is just as funny as the other ones. This would go well in a unit on animals, farms, or repetitive read-alouds with a strong chorus. I can't wait to purchase this for the collection we have at school with the other versions.

A new take on an old classic that many readers would have grown up listening to, or reciting themselves.

The images are colourful and wonderfully detailed in a cute cartoon style. I enjoyed the depiction of the old lady who always seems to have a cup of tea and a cupcake on the go.

With a conservative move away from the original verse of "perhaps she'll die" Miller ends each stanza with a different rhyming match to "fly" such as "It makes me cry" and "I'd rather eat pie."

It is hard to get the full visual effect with an eBook as the hard copy board book has peek-through die cut holes that show the every increasing animals inside the old lady as you turn the page.

Reading this book was a treat for me as well as the children. The full spread illustrations had many elements to look at apart from the mounting collection of animals in the old lady's belly. I loved that the animal that was next to be eaten appeared on the page previous to it being mentioned and the children could speculate what was coming next. The repetitive nature of the rhyming is conducive of audience participation and it didn't take them long to start joining in.

I didn't particularly like the ending with it's veer away from "She died, of course." I really don't think children take their story books so literally that they think an old lady died. Do we really need to be so sensitive? However this is a good version if you have a child that is sensitive to these things. Anyway, I liked it enough to seek out a hard copy to add to my home library. It was a lot of fun!

5/5 Stars. This book was so nice! It brought me back to my childhood when I read this poem. It was one of my favorites. As a child, I memorized this poem in front of my class for an assignment. It was so much fun to recite. I completely forgot about it until I saw this book. I brought back wonderful memories reciting this poem to my classmates who enjoyed it just as much as I did. I loved the illustrations. I also liked how some of the wording was changed to not sound as morbid. I would definitely purchase this book and read to my children.