There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Book
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs meets There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly in this clever, irreverent update of our most beloved children's classics.
The little old woman who lives in a book has lost her children! But instead of sitting around and waiting for them to show up, in a refreshingly empowering, feminist take on the classic tale, she departs on a mission to find her kids herself--even if it means popping into every other fairy tale and nursery rhyme in town! She'll enlist the help of Humpty Dumpty, Jack and his beanstalk, Princess Beauty, the Three Bears, and more familiar characters in her quest to rescue her kids. This silly, irreverent picture book is a clever jaunt through our most beloved children's stories--and it's sure to become the next modern day classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The fairy tale goes meta in this convoluted mystery about an "old woman" searching for her six missing children. When she sets out into the family's bookshelf neighborhood to find them, her quest takes her in and out of various classic nursery rhymes and children's stories that involve everyone from the three bears to Jack and Jill to Humpty Dumpty. Each character the woman meets reports that something important of theirs is missing, too (one of the three pigs is without a bundle of sticks, and the Wicked Witch is missing her supper). After the (rather predictable) culprit is revealed, the seekers reclaim their lost treasures, and the woman's children and partner turn up. The detailed illustrations have a digital, cartoonlike quality and cleverly incorporate books themselves as objects, but arid writing ("Excuse me, Bears. Did my kids pass by here?") and slack plotting are never quite overcome. Ages 3 6.
