But What Does the Hippopotamus Say?

by Francesca Simon, Helen Floate (Illustrator)

When young readers join this spirited romp with a menagerie of very vocal animals, they’ll discover not only what the hippopotamus says but also what yaks, kangaroos, giraffes, and caribou say.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Francesca Simon grew up in California and attended both Yale and Oxford Universities, where she specialised in Medieval Studies. How this prepared her to write children’s books she cannot imagine, but it did give her a thorough grounding in alliteration.

She then threw away a lucrative career as a medievalist and worked as a freelance journalist, writing for the Sunday Times, Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Telegraph, and Vogue (US). After her son Joshua was born in 1989, she started writing children’s books full time. One of the UK’s best-selling children’s writers, Francesca has published over 50 books, including the immensely popular HORRID HENRY series, which has now sold over twelve million copies.

Francesca won the Children’s Book of the Year in 2008 at the British Book Awards for Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman. HORRID HENRY is published in 24 countries and is also an animated CITV series. She lives in London with her husband, son, and Tibetan Spaniel, Shanti.

Reviews

[Edward Sojuwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly good kid's book where even grown readers can be surprised by how certain animals like hippos, giraffes and pandas make noises to communicate. Spoiler alert: pandas say hardly anything. My guess: sadly they may have chosen not to say anything since so many have died around the world. I too share this pain with a lot of you.
Three stars
Let's make some noise in support of animals!

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alissa was very interested in the kangaroo's noise - TSK!

[Danie P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for preschool and toddler crowd. Story shows a picture of animal and the sound they make but then asks what sound does a hippo make? Does anyone really know? The book makes up sounds that seem like they could possibly belong to the random animals. Iffy sounds like the hippo says "hunnnn" might bother parents who think hippos should sound otherwise. All in all a good book for teaching animals and animal sounds.

[Kristie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get little ones involved in this book by having them do all the animal sounds (some are much trickier than others!)

[Terryann · Rating 4 out of 5]

another fun storytime book