Independent Reading Level: Grades K-1
Awards: 1998 Randolph Caldecott Honor Medal and New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book award

I think this book is for intermediate and primary students. It is a poetry book about an old lady who is swallowing animals in the hopes that they will swallow the animal she ate before. then she dies after eating a horse.

Independent Reading Level: K-2 grades

Awards: Notable Children's Books

Independent Reading Level: Grades 1-2
Notable Children's Books Award (1998)

Reading Level: Grade Preschool-2, Lexile AD320L
Awards: Randolph Caldecott Medal, ALSC Notable Children's Books, Best Illustrated Children's Books, CCBC Choices.

Age: 4+
Awards: Caldecott Medal Nominee (1998)

Caldecott Honor Reading Level Pre-k - 3rd

Reading level: 1st grade
Awards:
Caldecott Medal

This book is on a first grade reading level, and has won the Caldecott Medal.

This book is based off of a popular old folks tale about an old lady who swallowed a fly and then many other animals to kill the other animals she swallowed. It ends with her eating her a horse and dying from eating it. Children may find this comical or they might think it is frightening so you need to be aware of your audience. I believe this is best suited for primary readers.

This book is about an oldy lady that swallow a fly and various other animals. Very fun and catchy book for kids. A great read aloud. ( )

This book is so cute and funny. I still laugh to this day about it and love the illustrations. ( )

This story is a timeless classic about a woman who swallows an increasingly absurd number and type of animal in order to catch the previous one, all starting with an accidental eating of a fly. The rhyming and ridiculousness of the story would engage the listener/reader while also introducing them to two key math concepts--sequencing and comparison-- and the science topic of food chains, even if this food chain is not an actual one the basic idea is still there. This story uses a repeated sequence of animals that young students would be able to follow, and it also places these animals in order from smallest to largest. ( )

This book is based on the very popular folktale from the 1940s that tells the story of an old lady who swallowed a fly. There rest is quite the adventure ( )

Illustrated version of the classic American folk poem. Fun holes cut in the book to see all the animals in the lady's stomach. Illustrations contain lots of details that represent where each animal comes from and things like newspapers, magazines, and recipes. A silly, fun book to read aloud. ( )

An eye-catching, humorous version of the American folk tale. The lettering and choice of magazine cut out typography further depicts the newspaper worthy story of an old lady who swallowed so many animals she died. I can see why parents wouldn't be a fan of this version due to the slightly distasteful death of the old woman. I find it humorous as well but would not likely read it in a story time. ( )

A classic retell of the traditional American folk tale. The graphics in this book are outstanding, and interactive. Much for children to look at as they listen to the familiar repetitive rhymes about the crazy old lady. ( )

I really like this book for a multiple of reasons. Its is such a humorous story that and unique that can keep the reading focus throughout the entire book. It tells the story of a old lady who keeps swallowing bigger and bigger animals. This is a great guided reading story because it has a sense of rhyme that makes it easier for the students to follow.

Each solution only made the problem worse. This folk poem is quite interesting and weird. I can remember reading it as a child and being in complete shock. The illustrations make the old lady seem mentally unstable, with her eyes going in different directions, but children love this book because it's so out there. The illustrations seem as if they were done on a variety of different surfaces with a variety of mediums them made into a collage on a computer. ( )

This picture book can be used to teach students about the sequencing of events. After reading the book the teacher can have cut outs of the different animals that the old lady ate and have them organize them in order. I like this book because it is repetitive and helps the students inference what is going to be said next. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book as a child. I found It funny listening to all the animals that the old lady swallowed. I love reading this book to my students now because the rhyming of the story really engages my students and finds It catchy and exciting to read. ( )

I really enjoyed this book for a variety of reasons, but the first reason is because of the humor it contains with the old lady swallowing all these animals from small ones to huge ones. The second reason it uses rhyme and makes it more catchy to read, and I think because even I as an adult finds it catchy to read then so will a young child. Lastly, it gives knowledge about different types of animals and allows children to see and really put in perspective how crazy and funny this book really is.

I love this book because not only of the significant amount of humor that is within the book, but rather, the rich history behind the book itself. "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" is a captivating story that has been converted from an older folktale and song that is based off a fictional tale about an Old Lady who seems to swallow everything in sight. The story shows all of the things that she consumes through rich plot and intriguing illustrations. At the beginning of the story, the Old Lady swallows a fly; however, as the story progresses, she swallows larger objects that fill up her tummy. I love the silliness and humor that the book contains, and I think my future students will as well. Some may even know the old folktale behind the story too. ( )

I liked this book for three reasons. First, I really enjoyed the illustrations that went along with the book. Throughout the story this old lady swallows different bugs and animals. Along with the story you saw illustrations of these bugs and animals as they talked about them. When the old lady had swallowed a fly, a spider, and a bird, there was a cut out on her stomach and “inside her stomach” you can see all three of those things that were in her stomach. As the story goes on, and she swallows more animals her stomach gets larger, and they continue to show you all the bugs and animals “inside her stomach” that she has eaten. This made the story much more fun to read because you were able to see all of the previous things that she had swallowed. Another reason that I liked this book was the rhyming that occurred throughout the story. After the story says what the old lady swallowed, they end it with “Perhaps she’ll die”. On each of these pages there are other animals and bugs and next to them there are little sayings that end in something that rhymes with “die”. For example, after the old lady swallowed the fly a few of the rhyming things were, “I think I’ll cry”, “She gulped it out of the sky”, and “OH my!”. These are really funny to read as the story goes on and some of them talk about how they feel about her swallowing these things. My final reason why I liked this book was because of the way the book flows. There is a lot of repetition in the story, as more animals/bugs get added to the list of things that the old lady swallowed. In the story after the old lady swallows a dog the writer says “She swallowed the dog to catch the cat. She swallowed the cat to catch the bird. She swallowed the bird to catch the spider. She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die.” In the beginning of the story this was very short because she had only swallowed one or two things. As the story goes on this gets longer.
At the end of the story it says that the moral is to “never swallow a horse”. This is because the old lady dies when she swallows the horse, but obviously no one can do this. This story goes along with the old folk song, but this adds illustrations to the story. I believe that the big idea of this story is just for children to enjoy the book, and get a little humor out of it. The illustrations make it easy and fun to picture the story, unlike the original old folk song. ( )

The character in this story continued to swallow things to catch what she had swallowed prior, until it killed her! ( )