Hippo Hippo Hurray!

It’s Penny the Hippo’s first day of school in Africa, and she is very excited to meet up with her best friend, Sal. As they go through their first days there, Sal makes friends with some of the other students, who deem Penny to be not quite worthy of being accepted into the “popular group.” Feeling quite the outsider, Penny eats lunch by herself and studies by herself. She quickly feels very sad that she is always the last one to be picked for games and does not have any friends. One day, Corrine the Ostrich finds herself in a terrible predicament in which Penny comes to the rescue – saving Corrine’s life. From that point on, Penny is the courageous hero.

I can pretty much guarantee that all of us—adults and children—can relate to Hippo Hippo Hurray! in that we’ve all, at one point in our school careers, been the unpopular one or been teased for not quite fitting in with the rest. As you read this book to your children, author Kristen Wells, along with illustrator Omega DiStefano, will take you back to those school days. The moral to the story – and to the message we all should carry with us through life – is that you should always remain true to yourself and be a kind and good person. Someday, that fortitude will be recognized. If you have a child who is struggling with fitting in, this would be a wonderful story for them, pointing out that it won’t always be this way.