There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Meerkat product reviews

My kids love this! Definitely one to be read not sung (rhyming verse) - it always gets huge laughs and loads of questions about the different animals. It's on high rotation in my household but some families might need to stay away from it at bedtime as the kids tend to get quite involved and animated.

A good update on the original theme with the old lady taking a trip to the zoo and getting quite hungry. Increasingly huge beasts get consumed but don't fret, the illustrations are completely hilarious as opposed to being scary. The famished old lady is even eyeing off a hippo by the end. The detail in each of the spreads brings my kids back to this book and even I find new detail in each spread each time we read it. Check out the character hidden in each spread.

My kids have got a Christmas "old lady" book which follows the same rhyming / pacey format. It's great for younger readers as the verses are easy to read and they love the rhymes. I like that the younger ones start to recognise different types of animals as well.

Bright, funny with short rhyming verses. Definitely a great tonic for picking up the mood in the household. It's fun to read and you can definitely add your own "Dad" flair in reading this.

I assumed that this book was going to be like 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly' and figured that the Meerkat was going to replace the fly but I was so wrong. I used to love singing that to my baby and could never remember the order of everything that she had swallowed so when I got the opportunity to read this I jumped at the chance.

The cover looked awesome, so bright and zany and the actual pictures through out the book are fantastic and it is neat to point out all the different animals on each page. But, as for the actual story, I really did not like it. Does not make sense at all and the ending is just so weird. Also in the original after each animal you said 'perhaps she'll die' but in this its 'fancy that' and it doesn't rhyme or go with the story at all. Just really badly written. I automatically started singing it and found I had to stop and read the words and felt like I was all over the place. Does not have a nice flow.

My four year old pointed out that how can she swallow a Giraffe and I could not answer that question. Just got really stupid the further you got into it. I have read it only a few times to the girls and they are over it completely and don't want to hear it any more.

Sorry can not really say anything nice except for the great pictures. Unfortunately I would not recommend this book. My daughter has since asked can we read 'There was an old lady who swallowed a fly' and I think I will have to find that version because this just is not very good.

When I got this, I was excited to read it as I grew up with the original version of There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (you know, the ending where she dies).

Getting this, I'll start off by saying that I LOVED the cover. It's bright and it's zany, just like me and my kids. Throughout the book the illustrations are just delightful and really eye catching. If this wasn't a new book I would happily make some kind of wall art with these pictures as I can't get enough of them.

Now, the story itself is where the book lost me and I just didn't like it. For me, as someone who knows and loves the original, doing a new version is ok, but only really if it makes both new and old fans alike happy. My habit with any of these spin-offs is to start singing it and for me the words just don't go well at all, I foudn myself having to rush it just to make the words fit. Yes, I know I could just read it, but that doesn't feel right to me.

I LOVE the illustrations in this book, as do my kids, but I'm not in any hurry at all to read it out loud to anyone (though I may play a trick on my mum and encourage the kids to beg her to read it to them. ).