Wasting his considerable talent on a clumsy, illogical tale, O’Malley casts big, rotund, comically frantic-looking animals knocking down trees, dashing hither and yon or tumbling down a steep hillside. Seeing Hippo flailing about suffering from a toothache, Cuckoo flies off to spread the alarm. Each listener in succession adds a fanciful bit to the report, until Hippo’s charged with trying to flood the entire Serengeti—whereupon his concerned “friends” gather round, and ultimately push him off a tall cliff. Down he falls, through no fewer than eight sideways panels—after which his tooth pops out, and he complains that now he has a headache. A communal nuzzle provides a cozy closing note, but such similar tales as Helen Ketteman’s Armadillo Tattletale, illustrated by Keith Graves (2000), or Jonathan Meres’s Big Bad Rumor, illustrated by Jacqueline East (2000), will play better, even with uncritical readers. (Picture book. 6-8)
