There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Mozzie by P. Crumble and Louis Shea, paperback picture book, published by Scholastic Australia in 2010.

This is an hilarious Australian twist on the classic There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly. Only here, the Old Lady swallows a Mozzie (mosquito), followed by a range of Aussie animals, which get bigger and bigger.

The illustrations in There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Mozzie are fantastic. The Old Lady is comically dressed in purple slippers with matching purple hair, and a purple bow on her wide-brim hat. My favourite picture is of the Old Lady eating an echidna sandwich with tomato sauce, but every page contains a wonderfully humorous drawing. And the story is just as entertaining, as she eats her way through the Australian bush in an attempt to catch the mozzie she has swallowed.

I shared this book with my children, and they loved it. It’s best for lower primary school children and below, though all ages can have a laugh while reading this book. It is perfect for reading aloud and for sharing. Once we’d read the story we really enjoyed talking about the pictures, and how silly the Old Lady is for swallowing all those animals, especially since she took her teeth out at the start! A fun book we will read over and over.