Swallowing Shamrocks? There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover by Lucille Colandro

THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED A CLOVER.
BUT SHE DIDN'T ROLL OVER!

It wouldn't be a holiday (or, as reference books put it more exactly, a "day usually observed") without one of Lucille Colandro's swallowing sagas about that old lady with eccentric ingestive preferences, and St. Patrick's Day is no longer an exception. The prolific Colandro has produced a new one for St. Paddy's Day, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover! (Scholastic, 2012).

Colandro draws a pass for choosing the word "clover" in place of the more specific "shamrock" here. In fact, this special day has fewer popular symbols to work with than, say, Christmas or Halloween, and it's not that easy to find rhymes for shamrocks and shillelaghs either! The author settles for spring-like images, such as butterflies, daisies, and birds, but finally has her gluttonous old lady ingest a fiddle, which sets her to dancing an Irish jig, which induces her to cough up a rainbow to mark the pot of gold belonging to, you guessed it, that long-awaited leprechaun waiting in the wings for his big moment.

BEFORE SHE WAS DONE,
A WEE LITTLE LEPRECHAUN!
JOIN IN THE FUN.
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

And why not, with Jared Lee's familiarly squiggly illustrations and plenty o' the green to set off that pot of gold. So pin on your shamrocks and get ready for Colandro's gustatory verses honoring the Emerald Isle.

Still hungry? Then try a taste of Natasha Wing's ever-green take-off on an oh-so-familiar rhyme scheme in The Night Before St. Patrick's Day (Reading Railroad). And if it's being over a diet of clover ye are, sip a few spoonfuls of Hudson Talbot's spicy O'Sullivan Stew (Picture Puffins). That should get ye in the mood for the green scene!