There Was an Old Astronaut Who Swallowed the Moon!

June 10, 2019
Colandro’s long-running series, which puts fresh twists on the cumulative nursery rhyme “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” here casts an astronaut as the central character: “There was an old lady who swallowed a star. It was bizarre to swallow a star!” In Lee’s quirky, grainy artwork, the “old astronaut” has big, bulgy eyes and an enormous jaw that expands to devour the moon. Two child characters appear as astronauts in space, where they make observations about the sun, moon, and galaxy: “The star closest to Earth is the sun. Our solar system only has one!” On Earth, they gaze skyward as a comet streaks by: “Why does the comet leave a bright trail?” By book’s end, the astronaut has swallowed the moon, meteoroid, planet, rocket, and satellite—or so it seems. Colandro offers an enjoyable readaloud filled with outer space facts, including back matter with vocabulary definitions and a search-and-find activity. Ages 4–8.