HIPPOPOTAMUS HUNT

From wordplay author Most (Zoodles, 1992) comes this treasure hunt for words made from the letters spelling hippopotamus. A group of children meet up with a hippo and tag along as he takes them to a place where words are in great supply -- the library. En route, they MUST read a MAP to go SOUTH, where a HOOP lies around a STUMP. Finding the words isn't a challenge: In stark black on a field of color, they fairly bite your nose as you turn the page. The cartoonish illustrations vary hardly at all from page to page, thus assuring continuity if nothing else, but they are a drab backdrop that could have been more inventively employed. The book puts so few demands on its readers, engages so little, that prenatals could have been included in the target audience. A very, very modest entertainment.