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Review by Alice Cary
Adults and children alike can't help falling for Sandra Boynton's lovable animals, whether they adorn her popular greeting cards, tee shirts, and mugs, or populate children's books such as Hippos Go Berserk!. Written when Boynton was a student at the Yale School of Drama, the tale has been redrawn by the artist in honor of its twentieth anniversary.
The nonstop action starts when one lonely hippo (Sandra as a graduate student, perhaps?) gets on the phone and hails his friends, who begin arriving in ever-increasing numbers -- in party hats, fancy attire, on tiptoe, even hidden in a sack -- until the lonely house overflows with 45 (count 'em) truly exuberant party animals.
Thankfully, the good times must eventually end: "at the hippo break of day/the hippos all must go away." And vamoose they do, pronto, by bus, covered wagon, helicopter, and wheelbarrow, all in numerical order. Kids will chuckle at this one while adults may remember wall-to-wall fraternity parties or thank their lucky stars that hordes of visiting relatives and friends aren't knocking at the door.
Alice Cary counts with her son Will and reviews books in Groton, Massachusetts.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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