Irregular Books

Never fear, the hippos don’t really go berserk, issuing cries of bloodlust as they slash their enemies to pieces on the battlefield. They’re cartoons.

Hippos Go Beserk, a board book by Sandra Boynton, is by no means great literature. On the other hand, if it were, it wouldn’t work for the very young children for whom it has been made.

Hippos Go Beserk is best read to the youngest group of children: Kids from a few months old to around two or three years of age. These kids are not exactly readers, but they’ll pay attention to the right kind of book — the kind with simple, dramatic illustrations that catch the eye and simple yet entertaining concepts that capture the young mind’s attention. Hippos Go Beserk is just that kind of book.

Even more importantly, Hippos Go Beserk won’t get on the nerves of its secondary audience: the parent. Those of you who have little ones know what I’m referring to here: as much as your children spend time with their little books, you’ll spend time with the books too, reading them aloud again and again and again. The truth is that I find the premise Hippos Go Beserk to be kind of entertaining. The idea of a bunch of fun-loving hippopotamuses sneaking into and out of a house to have a party is original and funny, yet not so sickly cute and sweet as to turn off a well-seasoned papa such as myself. Just looking at the title of this great little book, I’m slightly jealous, thinking back to the days when my reading consisted of such zany stuff. The generic, yet interesting illustrations round out the interest for gazers of all ages.

Now, my eight-month old son is just a tad young to be learning about numbers, much less addition and subtraction, but these simple mathematical concepts are nonetheless present in Hippos Go Beserk. As the hippos come and go, the reader counts them and comes to the total of 44. I doubt that much of this information will get through to my son, but I appreciate an infant’s book that gets higher level concepts in there just in case. Let’s face it: as parents we all have the irrational hope that our kids will learn things ahead of schedule. Who knows?

All in all, Hippos Go Berserk is a book worth buying. It isn’t exactly a classic, but it’s a fine piece to add variety to the nursery library, and keep you from going berserk from the repetition of the babes’ bedtime books.