There Was an Old Witch

ISBN: 0786823879

Author: Howard W. Reeves

Condition: Used

From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 1-Instead of an "Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," this Halloween story features an old witch who wants a bat. In the course of her search for the nocturnal animal, she captures a cat, creates a creature, unearths a mummy, assembles a skeleton, and conjures a haunt. At the somewhat anticlimactic ending, readers discover why she wants the bat-for "Nothing more/than to adorn/her Halloween hat!" A lively refrain invites participation: "I know why/she wanted the bat./But I won't tell you that." The watercolor and pen-and-ink pictures are more fun than fierce and include a lot of color and humor, but the crowded design of many of the pages, as well as the illustrator's style of showing partial figures, make the book problematic for group use. A holiday extra that's best suited to one-on-one sharing.Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VACopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description An old witch wishes for a bat, a cat, a skeleton, a mummy, and a plethora of other ghouls in a whimsical revision of a classic Halloween tale, told in a rhythmic text designed for reading aloud, complemented by energetic illustrations.