Elmer and the Hippos by David McKee

Elmer and the Hippos by David McKee
Buy Elmer and the Hippos by David McKee at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: It's number eleven in the 'Elmer' series of books and it's still fresh and enjoyable. This one's about the fun of co-operation.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: July 2011
Publisher: Andersen Press Ltd
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1842709818
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One day, just as Elmer was having a chat with Lion and Tiger, three angry elephants came by. The hippos had come to live in their river and they were worried that it would be crowded. Elmer was instructed to go and tell them to go. Elmer the patchwork elephant isn't like that though. He went to chat to the hippos and found that they'd come to this river because their river had dried up – and they really did need a river. Elmer went off to investigate the problem. Sure enough the hippos' river was completely dry.

The reason for this was quite simple. A fall of rocks had blocked the river where it flowed through a ravine and not a drop of water was getting though. It would be quite simple to move the rocks, but the hippos wouldn't be able to do it on their own as they didn't have trunks. Elmer collected his cousin Wilbur (he's the elephant who looks like a mobile chess board) and all the other elephants and off they went with the hippos to move the rocks. It was hard work and they all got very dusty but eventually they had the river flowing again –and when it did the hippos and the elephants all had a wonderful play in the water as it gushed through.

It's a lovely story about co-operation and how much more fun it is to share and work together than to insist on being isolationist. There was a problem – and for the hippos it was a big one – but it wasn't solved by the elephants insisting that this was their river, or the hippos being aggressive about their need for a water. It was solved by working together – and actually having some fun along the way. Excellent!

The text is great to read silently or to share with someone else and the pictures are a delight with wonderful colours and plenty to look at on every page. Even after the first reading you'll still be spotting things that you've missed and it's going to be a 'keeper' of a book – the type that children go back to time and time again. Here at Bookbag we thought that it was a lovely story with an interesting and instructive moral delivered in a non-preachy way.

I'd like to thank he publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

We think that David McKee is brilliant and we can recommend anything he's written.

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