I Saw Anaconda
Jane Clarke and Emma Dodd
Nosy Crow
Most of us are familiar with the nursery favourite, ‘There was an old woman who swallowed a fly’. What Jane Clarke provides herein is a riotous reworking of the rhyme featuring a little boy – the narrator – and a gigantic, guzzling anaconda intent on devouring everything from the tiniest tick …

to an alligator.

And even that’s not enough; she goes on to consume the boy – binoculars and all – too. Story over then? Not quite.
We all know the outcome of over indulgence and here it is …

Young children relish the build-up as they wait for Anaconda’s comeuppance and if my experience is anything to go by, will demand an immediate regurgitation of the whole yucky tale. The description on the cover pretty much sums up the snakey shenanigans herein: it’s great fun to share. Clever use of foldout pages,

multi-flaps …

and pop-ups give extra room for Emma Dodd’s deliciously gigglesome artistry, and to display the hapless victims within their devourer.