Product Description

Acclaimed author Christine Loomis and award-winning illustrator Robert Neubecker have teamed up to create Hattie Hippo, a character whose cuteness is truly captivating! Four funny stories showcase Hattie at her best--just being Hattie. A perfect read-aloud for loads of fun. "Hattie Hippo pirouettes on teensy, tiny toes. In dazzling, pearly, perfect teeth she holds a pale pink rose. She whirls, she twirls, she leaps on high. Two rhinos, waiting, smile. Oops! Teeny prima ballerina misses by a mile!"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #536001 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K–In each of four episodes, a young hippo encounters a self-imposed mishap. When ballerina Hattie leaps through the air, she overshoots the waiting arms of her rhino partners. She eats all the food while her guests go hungry at her tea party. In her wading pool, she splashes the water away in a cannonball jump. During hide-and-seek, Hattie falls asleep in her hiding spot. In short, punchy rhymes, Loomis has created an enthusiastic, resilient, and endearingly oblivious heroine. Surrounded by copious white space, the warm watercolor-and-ink cartoon illustrations are funny and mesh well with the sparse text. Young children will both laugh at and identity with Hattie.–Rachel G. Payne, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
PreS. The artwork features plenty of white space, the better to show off Hattie, a young hippo who likes to be center stage. She stars in four short vignettes in which the humor sometimes comes from her size. In the first, she's pirouetting in front an audience on "teensy tiny toes," but she misses her jump and fails to fall into her rhino partner's arms (perhaps that's for the best). In another episode, her jump into a wading pool displaces all the water. The two other segments involve Hattie falling asleep at crucial moments--which, given the brevity of the text, seem too repetitive. Part of the attraction here is the crisp, rhyming dialogue, but the real lure is the artwork. The ink-and-watercolor pictures feature a heroine as sweet as she is round and jaunty. Considering the fact the story covers some well-traveled territory, Neubecker makes it fun. Although the book is in a picture-book format, it could easily be used with the easy-reader crowd, who will find it, well, easy to read. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

My daughter loves, loves, loves Hattie and this book
Charming and funny. Only downside so far is I spent an entire summer vacation doing cannonballs into the pool thanks to my daughter's love of this book (read it and you'll understand). Happy to report less water displacement than Hattie makes, though...

Just Okay
I thought my 4 year old would love this book, but after I chose to read it to her a couple of times, she has never chosen it to read on her own or for me to read.

Be prepared to read this over and over
I first borrowed this book from my local library as I have learned the hard way (buying books that my daughter doesn't like) that just because a book is for your child's age group it is not necessarily of interest to your child. This book is both girlie and funny and it unusual rhyme patterns. There is ballet, tea parties, swimming and hide-and-seek all in one book. What's not to like?

My daughter who is 3 loves each of the short segments and says some parts along with me when I read it. The colors are vibrant as a picture book should be and the wording is to the point as well. I hope you enjoy it too.