A satisfying story of hippo-bird, bird-hippo friendship.
In this sweet-but-sassy British import, Hugo the hippo and Bella the bird announce their intentions to attend the Hippo-Bird (or Bird-Hippo) Fairy-Tale Fancy Dress Party disguised as the Princess and the Pea.
Bella doesn’t want to be the pea to Hugo’s princess, of course (“too green and small”), so she decides she’ll be a mermaid and Hugo will be her rock. Hugo protests that rocks are “too gray and blobby”—despite obvious similarities between him and rocks that Bella isn’t shy to point out. Not long after their bickering ends in a snippy standoff, both separately reconsider…and both end up dressing as peas for the ball. This charming story of compromise is mostly a dialogue rendered in two typefaces, a rounder, more hippo-ish style for Hugo’s voice and a scrappier one for Bella’s. The spare design, a fetching combination of inky black lines and blankets of saturated color, perfectly reflects the comical nature of the friends’ opposing perspectives. Rickerty has fun with color—at one point Bella paints Hugo orange (to be Cinderella’s pumpkin), and the next spread is a cheerful mess of orange hippo tracks and white Bella tracks. The copyright page shows a photograph of a bird and hippo together, a natural phenomenon no doubt inspiring Hugo’s opening line “All hippos have birds, and Bella is mine.”
A satisfying story of hippo-bird, bird-hippo friendship. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4424-3614-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An instructive tale about big feelings, lightened up by a furious kid’s theatrics.
An angry child attempts to calm down.
A kid with paper-white skin, clad in a blue dress and striped tights, makes an absurd request: “Can we get a pet penguin, name it Marshmallow, and feed it carrots?” Mom, off-stage, says simply, “Not today,” and the tot transforms into a rather odd creature: a spicy nugget! The nugget is imperfectly ovoid in form, with red rosy cheeks, rage-filled dot-eyes, and a spiraling black-hole mouth. The sight gag works beautifully: When one feels truly angry, all poise disappears, leaving only a flailing ball of rage. Our protagonist hurls a teddy bear, unsuccessfully tries out a list of calming methods, and finally retreats to bed, where “I can feel my breathing; I know that I am safe.” The youngster reverts back to human form, and Mom arrives with kind words: “You are not your big feelings. You are not your angry thoughts.” The takeaway is unmistakable, especially at the story’s conclusion: It’s OK to get mad and important to practice coping strategies. The young narrator expresses emotion with fabulous vigor, though the story’s lilting rhyme scheme occasionally distracts from these outbursts with cuteness. Nonetheless, this increasingly enraged nugget-child is irresistible; anyone who’s grappled with overwhelming emotions will relate—in a word, everyone.
An instructive tale about big feelings, lightened up by a furious kid’s theatrics. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9798217042142
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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