• Is it age appropriate?

  About our ratings

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  Not age appropriate for kids under 3, age appropriate for kids over 5; suggested age 5.

• Is it any good?

  3.0

• Common Sense says

  Clever, but more an art project than a kid-friendly book.

Why We Rated This for Ages 5 and Up

The good stuff

• Educational value:

  May get kids thinking about art and how pieces can fit together to make a collage.
• Messages:

  No real messages here about not swallowing animals. Just silliness.
• Illustrations:

  The format and the illustrations of this book are clever, though perhaps not that kind of clever that will capture the interest of young kids.  Actually, with all its scrapbook kind of detail and unusual format, this book looks more like an art project than a book. A long and slender board book of sorts, it is done in rather drab browns and grays, and sports a somewhat scary-looking face. The book itself is stiffly set in the area of the old woman's stomach and, as you turn each page, you see a rather fanciful illustration of what she has just swallowed. In the end, as you turn the final page and she dies, a tab pulls her eyes closed. 

What to watch out for

• Violence & scariness:

  Just a silly poem though the old woman swallows one increasingly larger animal after another until she swallows the horse...she dies of course.

What Parents Need to Know

About There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Families Can Talk About