There Was An Old Sailor

Claire Saxby (text)

Cassandra Allen (illus)

Walker Books, Australia: 2010

ISBN: 9781921150715

Genres: picture book, poetry

‘There was an old sailor/ Who swallowed a krill/ I don't know why/ He swallowed the krill/ It'll make him ill'.

Remember the old add-on poem about the old lady who swallowed a fly? Well here's that well-loved pattern reinvented. An old man swallows as variety of marine organisms for unknown reasons and with dubious consequences for his digestive system. Children love this kind of nonsense poem, with its sense of the absurd and impossible, and will thoroughly enjoy chanting along with the accumulating list of things that get swallowed.

Cassandra Allen's illustrations are capture the whimsy of the text, offering unusual visual perspectives and a series of slightly wild-eyed sea creatures who are obviously just as confused by the old sailor's ways as the reader. Bright colours and deceptively simple images reinforce the naïve wonder of the tale. Great fun and an excellent resource for looking at how traditional texts can be adapted and reinvented.