Jeremy Holmes's There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly is a delightful picture-book based on the beloved nursery rhyme. Holmes's illustrations are grim and Gorey-esque, sepia-toned with lots of little comedy moments, whimsical annotations and elaborations (leathery bat-wings on a cow are unexpectedly fitting!). The book is an odd, tall shape (like a CD long-box), and the top third is the old lady's face, with her eyes staring owlishly from behind round glasses. The grand finale of the book ("There was an old lady who swallowed a horse/She's dead of course") is celebrated with a cute mechanical effect: when you turn the last page, the lady's eyes close and the accompanying illustration shows her arms folded across her chest, holding fly-swatter like a lily.
This is one of my favorite rhymes, along with "There's a hole in the bucket," since it contains such an important lesson about life: some solutions are really just problems in disguise.
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
