The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything Review

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything [1986, HarperCollins, ISBN: 0-690-04584-0], by Linda Williams and illustrated by Megan Lloyd is a 32-page children's picture book with a scarecrow theme that is particularly well-suited for Halloween.

The Story

An old lady is taking a walk through the woods and meets up with various items:

• two shoes
• a pair of pants
• a shirt
• two gloves
• a hat
• a scary pumpkin head

Each item does something or makes a noise (clomp, clap, wiggle, etc.) and the lady tells it to get out of the way and informs the item that she's not scared (but she picks up her walking pace as she continues through the dark woods). Each item begins to follow her home so that at the end, she has quite a parade behind her. She finally reaches her house and catches her breath in her rocking chair in her quiet house.

But wait...there's a knock at the door and guess what's on the other side. The old woman feels a bit sorry for the items whose main goal was to scare her and she decides to whisper an idea in the pumpkin head's ear. What is the great secret?

Other Information on the Book

Each open page has words on one side and a full-color picture on the other. My main caution would be that some children might find it a bit scary to imagine this old woman walking through the dark with all these clothes following her, but it does have a happy ending and the book keeps talking about how the woman says she isn't scared.

My Viewpoint:

This book incorporates sequencing, where previous phrases in the book are repeated, so it's a lot of fun for kids who like to try to remember the previous phrases. It can also encourage kids to act out the various actions of the clothing items. My kids (8, 5, 2) all enjoy this book, and it's particularly fun around Halloween time. There are lots of fun activities for the classroom associated with this book--just do a web search to find them!