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Summary
Summary
Hilarious hippos make a party out of counting in this Sandra Boynton board book classic first published more than forty-five years ago.
Exuberant hippopotamus guests show up in ever-increasing numbers, until an all-night party is inevitable. Hippos Go Berserk! is the first book ever published by children's book master Sandra Boynton, and is perfect for travel time, bedtime, or PARTY TIME!
One hippo, all alone,
calls two hippos on the phone.
Three hippos at the door
bring along another four.
Author Notes
Sandra Boynton was born in Orange, New Jersey, and grew up in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Boynton's parents became Quakers when she was two years old. From kindergarten through 12th grade, she and her sisters attended Germantown Friends School, where their father taught English and was Head of the Upper School. She went on to Yale, entering in 1970 for her second year of college. She spent the second semester of her junior year studying in Paris through Wesleyan University's program. At Yale, she majored in English. Boynton intended to become a theater director. For graduate studies in drama, she attended the University of California at Berkeley for one year, then transferred to the Yale School of Drama D.F.A. program, but she did not complete the program. With the birth of her first child in 1979, Boynton postponed indefinitely a career in the theater. Boynton began designing greeting cards for Recycled Paper Greetings. Her designs were at the forefront of the Alternative Cards commercial movement that began in the mid-1970s. According to RPG co-founder and president Mike Keiser, over 200 million copies of Boynton's distinctive humorous cards featuring an assortment of unnamed cartoon animal characters, spare layout, and droll messages sold between 1973 and 1995. Since the 1977 release of Hippos Go Berserk!, Boynton has published many children's books, as well as several illustrated humor books for the general market. Her books are most typically for very young children, offered in the laminated paperboard format known as board books. Five of her books have been New York Times best sellers: Chocolate: The Consuming Passion; Frog Trouble and Eleven Other Pretty Serious Songs; Yay, You!; Consider Love; and Philadelphia Chickens, which reached the number one position on the list, and was on the list for nearly a year. Two of her books are Publisher's Weekly bestsellers, Dinosaur Dance!, and Eek! Halloween!. Three of Boynton's books are on the Publishers Weekly All-Time Bestselling Children's Books list. More than 30 million copies of her books have been sold.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Happening hippos And for a merrier look at oversized animals, Sandra Boynton's Hippos Go Berserk!, first published in 1977, is reissued in a larger format with new colors. In this counting book, the phone call of one lonely hippo initiates a party: "One hippo, all alone,/ calls two hippos on the phone," and the number of guests snowballs. Boynton's cheerful artwork, familiar from the greeting cards she has designed as well as from numerous books, is as well suited for children as for mirth-minded adults. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
'One hippo, all alone, / calls two hippos / on the phone.' And so begin the arrangements for a hip hippopotamus party. Boynton's familiar, lovable hippos come and go as the reader counts along with the rhyming tale. From HORN BOOK 1996, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Hippos Go Berserk ($14.00, paper $5.99; Oct. 1, 1996; 32 pp.; 0- 689-80854-2, paper 0-689-80818-6): A 20-year-old counting book gets new illustrations featuring, once again, the solitary hippo who invites two friends to what becomes a wild party as groups of three, then four hippos (up to nine) arrive and then depart. Large numerals appear in the corners of the appropriate pages, where the hippos, wearing wonderfully varied expressions, cavort on large expanses of cheery color. Some of the humor will register only with adults, e.g., a hippo portrait pays homage to Whistler. Most of the fun will make perfect sense to preschoolers; give this to a slightly younger audience than those who love Jeff Sheppard's The Right Number of Elephants (1990). (Picture book. 2-5)