Recently Mrs. Shmoo and I had a chance to pick up a whole pile of scholastic books for our little barely walking, non-speaking Shmoo. Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type looked so funny we had to read it while we were zipping through the local grocery store.
We weren’t disappointed with that one (people gave us pretty odd looks as we laughed out loud when the chickens went on strike) or any of the others that we’ve bought and have read so far. Granted, they are well beyond the general scope of the average one year old, but if you work at it when you read them, you can keep their attention. Personally I’d rather be reading something that’s more advanced to my girl than something that’s less.

One such book is The Hiccupotamus written and Illustrated by Aaron Zenz and published in 2005 by Dogs In Hats Publishing. A few of the books we picked up caught us simply because of their front artwork. Moosetache, Parts and Are You Quite Polite (which I will probably write about) all snagged us because of the picture chosen to go on the front cover and Hiccupotamus was no different. It was a smart choice and I have no doubt that my girl will grab this one on her own when she starts going through her library herself.

The front illustration (and all inside) is done in soft pastel pencil crayon colors and combines a Disney style with Berke Breathed’s Bloom County. Before we crack the book we see a purple Hippo thrown in the air by the force of his own hiccup. A blue ant is cowering under three raised arms, unsure what is going to happen when the hippo falls back to earth.

We flip the front cover:
There was a hippopotamus,
Who hiccupped quite a lot-amus,
And every time he got’emus,
He’d fall upon his bottomus.

The poor Hippo wanders through his land annoying all around him with his hiccups. He makes an elephant dump lemon/lime cakes on herself (ok... I’m assuming they were lemon/lime because of the colors), he destroys a centipede’s mortar work and he gets himself and those he’s antagonizing tied up in an orange Rhino’s dental floss.
He eyes them with fear, concerned that he has “Called Down The Thunder” by suspending them from tree branches but they kindly sit down and try to cure his affliction (after tying his mouth shut of course).
They spin him in circles, tie him to a buffalo, make him breath in to a bag, sink him in water, scare him, force feed him vinegar and tickle him. This last trick seems to work and the Hippo flash’s a huge smile until...

This book is funny in most every way. The main story is cute for small kids and it will dispel the myth that “There are no rhymes for Elephant”.
The pictures are very well done and something tells me that Zenz is an illustrator first and writer second. Many times the pictures take up the majority of the space with only a word or two on the pages.
Like I said, if you do the proper Hic sound effects, you and the illustrations should have no trouble keeping a child’s attention, and at fifteen pages total it won't take long to get through.
The back of the book holds a set of cast bios that will make any grown up chuckle once they discover that the story is actually a Hollywood production starring Hank Polowski, Bartholomew Poppins, Katie McMurphy, a foreign speaking Samu Ti, Dennis Flott (retiring after this role) and Arlo the squirrel who went through fourteen hours of makeup in order to look like a convincing buffalo.
Also included is a four minute audio disk than can tell the story if you’re child wants to listen. While the lumbering country music (by Doug Califano) and the sound effects are fun, I’d rather do my own interpretation of it. They chose Skip Hinnant to read it (the voice of Fritz The Cat and multiple Electric Company characters including Fargo North, Decoder) and he’s kind of a ham.

Still... a good book and one I'm glad I picked up. At fifteen bucks it’s a bit expensive but you are paying for the art work and the audio. I know that it will create a few laughs and look forward to reading it again to her. My wife has some trouble with the tongue twisters (words like quickerish and elephantipede) but Hailee likes it when daddy does the fake hiccups and different voices.


Recommended: Yes