Hip Hippos.

Hippos dance and parade their way through this book wearing an incomplete rainbow of colour. “Hippos wearing bright red tank tops. Hippos dressed in purple flip-flops…Hippos putting on green dresses, Bibs to catch all kinds of messes…Hip hippos follow colourfully into the wallow.”

As colour concept books go, this one deals more with the hippos than with the colours. Too wordy, the text moves away from the focus of the book, for example, Hippos sporting strong brown leather, hats to shade them from bad weather. Brown is almost lost in the vague text and overdone images. Rather than using the hippos as a vehicle to showcase the colours, Yolen does the opposite, the colour seem to be the vehicle to showcase the hippos. While Van Kampen’s illustrations are wonderful, they perfectly mimic the feeling of the book. Hippos. Hip Hippos has two other books in the series, One Hippo Hop and Sad, Mad, Glad Hippos.