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)

Knuckleheads on Bookie Woogie!

If you haven't found the Bookie Woogie blog yet, take a look.  It's a one-of-a-kind, in which a family reviews a book together in a running commentary.  And, there's art!

Today they reviewed Knuckleheads!

Apple Countdown

The F&Gs for Apple Countdown just arrived from my editor today!  I never know when they're going to show up, so it's always a pleasant surprise. F&Gs are the "folded and gathered" pages of a children's book. They look exactly like the printed book, but without the hard covers and the reinforced binding. Instead of being glued or sewn, the pages are stapled together. (You can see the staples on the left side of the cover here if you look closely.) F&Gs are created to show to reviewers and bookstore buyers shortly before the book is published. 

In this book, a class of nineteen, plus the teacher, makes twenty going on a field trip to an apple farm. Count 20 name tags, 19 kids on the bus, 14 cows and 13 ducks (10 white and 3 black), and so on. I got this idea from real life, when a second grade teacher I know took her class to an apple farm in Washington--the state that grows the most apples of all fifty states!

Apple Countdown 

Amazon / Barnes&Noble

Joan Holub, author

Jan Smith, illustrator

Albert Whitman & Co.

hardcover picture book

isbn 9780807503980

March 2009