TYPE & SUBTYPE: Poetry

Title: There was an old lady who swallowed a bat!

Author: Lucille Colandro
Illustrator: Jared Lee
Publisher: Scholastic
Place and Date of Publication: New York, 2002
No. of Pages: 32
Awards Received: None
Summary:
It started when an old woman swallowed a bat. Nobody knows why she swallowed
the bat. Then she swallowed the owl and started howling. She swallowed it deaden
the bat. She swallowed the cat that made her fat. Next, she liked it the most when
she swallowed the ghost. After that, she swallowed the goblin that made him feel
dizzy. She then swallowed some bones. Finally, she swallowed a wizard to cast a
spell and then yelled, Trick or Treat! Then she burped.
Remarks:
The book is a story, told in repetitive words, of an old woman who swallowed many
creatures one after the other to be able to cast a spell at the end. Nobody knows
why she did it; nobody cant even imagine someone could do such thing. This
literature is a very popular piece used in school, in contests and even in auditions.
Looking at the illustrations, a young reader could horribly imagine someone as old
as the woman eating such, still puzzled why do it and how she did it. The fun part of
this literature is the use of repetitive words that work as a chain that you should be
able to follow to grasp the story. One could enjoy reading the piece, got it
memorized and could sing to a tune while reading. With this piece, I learned that
everything has reason; you just have to look for it. Everything has an end; you just
have to work and wait for it.