Silly Halloween Book
Written: Jan 30 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good illustrations, includes music and lyrics
Cons: More of a poem than a story
The Bottom Line: This is an OK book to read to a child during the Halloween season.
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| daddym's Full Review: Judy Varga - Once-A-Year Witch |
I know I am a bit out of season writing a review about a Halloween book in January, but I was actually looking for something else and found this book in the process. I had actually read this to my son in October but didn’t have the time to write a review on it at that time. The book is called There Once Was a Witch. This actually a book that was created from a Halloween song, the book does not really say who wrote the song, but permission to do the book was given by Pearson Education, Inc. the person or company who copyrighted is Silver Burdett Ginn. At the back of the book the song is included along with the lyrics, and the music notes. The name of the song is of course There Once Was a Witch. The book is illustrated by R. W. Alley. The song is two versus and the book contains both versus.
In case that was all difficult to understand, this book is an illustrated version of the song.
The witch in this book and in the song is not a mean witch, she is actually kind of a silly witch. She likes to tap on windows and fly away. As the neighborhood children watch and laugh the witch flies around and does silly tricks on her broomstick. She flies upside down on her broom, while her poor black kitty cat is hanging on for dear life. She has things flying out of her hair, and she also flies around with a frog on her head, at one point it says, “Plop goes the hop toad sitting on her head.” I am not really sure what that means, does the frog actually fall from her head, and fall on to the ground, from the looks of the picture it looks as if he had fallen in to her hat.
The wording of the book or the song in the book is more like a poem. The wording seems to be more about rhyming than it is about actually telling the story, but the illustrations kind of tell the story or at least explain what is going on. From the illustrations we see that the witch is just being quite silly, possibly to entertain the neighborhood children who were out Trick or Treating. In the process she seems to be putting her poor cat and frog in a nervous panic. The kids seem to love it, and the witch even seems to make the kids fly about the neighborhood as well, and they love it, they are laughing and happy.
The illustrations are quite good and very detailed. With out the details in the illustrations the song itself wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. I don’t really know what to say about this book. My son seemed to like it when I read it to him, but he only asked for it to re-read once. He has other books that he likes to have read to him over and over again. I think he really likes to point things out, and we like to learn about things by using the questioning and pointing method, but this book has way too much going on to really do that. But it is funny as the witch is quite funny.
There is nothing really to be gained in the learning area with this book. It is simply for fun. If you are musically inclined and able to read sheet music you can sing the song at the end of the book and you can teach your child to sing the song, and you can of course play it on the piano or any other instrument for that matter.
This is an OK book to read to a child between the age 3 and 6 during the Halloween Season.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
daddym
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Member: Robert M
Location: IL
Reviews written: 123
Trusted by: 31 members
About Me:
Husband, Father, Pet Owner, Computer Geek and Motorcycle Enthusiast, poker player.
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