Bookie Woogie and Knuckleheads

Author-illustrator Aaron Zenz's Bookie Woogie blog is one of my faves and was featured on the news today:  http://www.wzzm13.com/news/article/162069/14/Family-launches-kids-book-review-blog How fun that one of the young reviewers is reading my Chronicle picture book, Knuckleheads!

Aaron Zenz: the HICCUPotamus

There was a hippopotamus
Who hiccupped quite-a-lotamus.
And every time he got’emus. . .
. . . He’d fall upon his bottomus.

Wordplay is one of my favorite things, and it abounds in this clever picture book by author-illustrator, Aaron Zenz. When hippopotamus gets hiccups, his friends employ various “helpful” methods of assisting him to overcome them. (His friends include a yellow elephant, and a rhinoceros using dental flosserous.) After much trial and error, hippo is cured. And then. Hic! His friends come down hiccups themselves as shown in this page, rendered in Prismacolor pencil:

















Inside Scoop:
Multi-talented Aaron Zenz has worked as a fine artist, graphic designer, multimedia designer, and illustrator. He’s also the author of one of my favorite blogs, Bookie Woogie, which he creates with his children. It's a very entertaining and informative view of what kids think and say about books as they're reading them.

the HICCUPotamus
Aaron Zenz, author-illustrator
Dogs in Hats, publisher, 2005
(also published by Scholastic book clubs)