Howard W. Reeves

"There was an old witch who wanted a bat," begins this Halloween variant of the classic children's song, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, following the eponymous witch as she captures or creates a parade of successively larger creatures, in the pursuit of her pteropine prey. And why, exactly, does she want this bat...? Well, to learn that, the reader must finish the rhyme!

Although I wouldn't say that There Was an Old Witch was a personal favorite, when it comes to the slew of Halloween books I've been reading of late, I believe that young readers will enjoy its combination of zany text and humorously spooky illustrations. David Catrow, whose illustrations I first encountered in Kathryn Lasky's She's Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head!, creates one amusing scene after another here, making this a book his fans will want to peruse!… (mais)