Friday 9 March 2012

Friday's fun fact - Hip hip hooray for hippos!

Did you know that hippos walk in water? Ok, so it's not quite as impressive as if they could walk on water (that would be weird!), but their enormous size and specific gravitiy means they sink and literally walk along the bottom of rivers.

One of the books John has illustrated is about a little hippo in Africa and is based on factual events that occurred during the catastrophic tsunami of 2004. A family of hippos were swept out to sea from their home on Sabaki River, in Eastern Kenya. The sole survivor of the disaster was a baby hippo who was rescued and given the name Owen. Motherless and alone, Owen was befriended by Mzee, a giant male tortoise at a local nature reserve.

The book is called "A Mummy for Owen" and below is a clip of Fern Britton reading the book as part of the Bookaboo series. We love how they have animated the illustrations.


Also, staying with the hippo theme, we saw these hippo beanbags and thought they were very cute...

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