There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed the Sea

by Pam Adams

Thirty years after the publication of the much-loved classic 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly' comes 'There was an old lady who swallowed the sea'; a fantastic prequel to the original title. Here the old lady swallows more and more creatures from the sea to try and catch the initial fish.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Childrens

16 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Pam Adams (1919-2010) was a British children's book author and illustrator, and a graphic designer. Born in Swindon in 1919, she was educated at the Swindon Art College and at the Central School of Art in London, and worked for many years as a graphic designer in the advertising field. In the 1970s she returned to Swindon, and teamed up with Michael Twinn, who had recently founded the publishing house Child’s Play. Her first children's book, There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, was published in 1972, and remains a bestseller for the publishing house. After writing and illustrating countless other picture-books, Adams died in 2010, at the age of 91.

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

I wasn't sure how one could escalate from the titular phrase, but apparently it's the end rather than than the beginning.

There's a lot going on visually -- the lefthand page has the current verse and then each preceding line is written around the hole in the page (so that you can read the ones from each preceding smaller hole) and also has the currently swallowed item near the fold (and usually near the top), with the next item to be swallowed more to the left and on the bottom of the page. Meanwhile, the righthand page shows the woman, with ever increasingly large cut-outs showing each item she has swallowed (which has in turn swallowed the item before it).

I wasn't super into this book -- I think in part because the progression feels less intuitive than a fly being caught by a spider being caught by a bird being caught by a cat being caught by a dog (at which point admittedly the original just gets ridiculous) and feels more like the author was just picking increasingly large sea animals (fish, crab, squid, seal, shark, whale).

[David Bril]

This is basically a prequel to the Fly story, as you will find at the end of the book, which I thought was pretty clever. I love the story of this book, introducing lots of sea creatures to children. The animation is lovely. The board book verison has each page cut out like the same of the animal being swallowed. Very good little tale.

[Cheryl]

Just read this one to my class--they were thoroughly entranced by the book! They loved the cut-outs on each page that showed the sea creatures the old lady swallowed, and they really enjoyed listening to the CD which came with the book!

[Laura]

A seafaring take on the old lady who swallowed the fly. The cool thing about this book is there are progressively bigger cut outs to show the procession of animals she swallows.

[Brandon Dyer]

I thought the story was really humorous and creative. I loved the illustrations and the circular sentence on the left page. I really enjoyed it

[Little Champs]

BB 15

[The Campbell Family]

Linden (2) lost interest in this quickly. It was fun to read for a minute and then became tedious. Didn’t love the illustrations.

[KaitandMaddie]

The girls enjoy these and particularly like the cut-outs that let you see all the previously swallowed animals.

[Kristina]

This was a different version of there was an oldy who swallowed a fly. I thought that it was ok. Something different but not my favorite. This is also an AR book for anyone who wants to know.

[Nojood Alsudairi]

Another good one of Adam's.