Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Fly Guy
Fiction Series
For ages 5 to 7
Scholastic, 2007 ISBN: 978-0439639064
One day Buzz goes to visit his grandma, and he takes his pet fly, Fly Guy, with him. When Grandma sees Buzz coming, she gets so excited that she runs to meet the little boy and sweeps him up in a big hug, accidentally swallowing poor Fly Guy in the process!
Naturally, both Buzz and Fly Guy are deeply distressed by this event. Fly Guy isn’t inside Grandma long before he figures out that he wants to get out of there, and so he flies up the way he came down. Grandma, for reasons of her own, decides to swallow a spider to catch Fly Guy, and then a bird to catch the spider. Without a doubt, Grandma has some strange ideas when it comes to swallowing flies.
In this retelling of “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly,” Tedd Arnold tells the story from Fly Guy’s point of view, which is both different and amusing. Children will laugh when they see what Grandma does, and how Fly Guy saves the day.
