A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock

A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock, illustrated by Fritz Siebel

Rating: 2.5 stars

I need to learn to preview books before reading them to my kids!  I have learned this the hard way several times.  Once, I was "reading" a wordless picture book to Lorelei and was, obviously, describing the images on the pages in a story-like way.  A little boy and his dog went fishing, they saw a turtle, the dog went into the water to chase the turtle, they wrestled in the water and...then...oh, my...  I see a picture of the turtle floating, belly up, in the water!  How to explain this one?!  Um, the turtle floats on his back, looking up at the sky, and the boy goes in to the water to get the turtle, and then (oh, I see--the turtle was just playing dead) the turtle jumps up and they all become friends.  That was a library book I hid after a single reading. 

You'd think I learned my lesson!  Of course not.

We checked out this book, one of the I Can Read It Myself Beginner Books, in a fit of nostalgic hysteria--don't you remember this book?!  I think it was a good one...right?  Lorelei and I started reading it, and it starts off innocently enough.  A boy sits watching the sky, then a fly zooms by because he is chased by a frog, which wants to eat him.  The frog hops by because he is chased by the dog, which wants to grab him.  The dog runs by because he is being chased by a pig, which wants to bite him.  The pig runs from cow, and the cow and her calf run because "someone bad has made us run! / He wants to kill my Little One!"  Oh. 

Kill?!  I mean, I know it's part of life, and poor Lorelei and Ben have been introduced to animal death a few times because our crazy weimaraners have killed a cute baby raccoon (poor guy) and chipmunk (we'll miss him) in the past year, but...  Do I really read this to them?  I didn't.  I substituted "hurt" and moved on, thinking that once the fox who wanted to kill the little cow was out of the way, I'd be in the clear.

Nope.  No such luck.

Soon, the little boy yells at the fox and tells him that if he doesn't stop trying to kill the cow, the boy will whip him.  Great.  That's a word I want in Lorelei's vocabulary.  Whip.  And then, two pages later, we find out that the fox is running because a man with the gun wants to get him.  Great!  Another quality vocabulary word for my three year old: gun!  Her preschool teacher will be unduly impressed.

So, I'd steer clear of this book.  It's not that it's the worst out there, but there are so many other I Can Read It Myself books that you should be able to find another one quite easily.