41. I've Lost My Hippopotamus

I've Lost My Hippopotamus by Jack Prelutsky (Greenwillow Books) 2012

Genre

Poetry

Review

A series of humorous poems mainly about animals.  The humor often derives from the animals performing actions that are uncharacteristic.  In "The Fish Are in the Treetops," fish are in trees, owls are underwater, and elephants are flying.  In "Otto Gottalott" the narrator owns a horse small enough to carry when he runs, an octopus that sings, and tiny green giraffes.  Prelutsky also experiments with concrete poem tropes.  In "Curious Quandry," the narrator writes his "U"s upside down and dots his "I"s on the bottom.  In "On the Road to Discovery," the poetic lines meander across the two page spread, demarcating the path of the titular road.

Opinion

The poems owe a lot to Shel Silverstein, first and foremost.  The common metrical pattern is very similar to that in Silverstein's best known poems.  But Prelutsky also cribs from Lewis Carroll -- especially with his love of odd creatures created by making portmanteau words -- Appleopards (a cross between apples and leopards), the crabacus (a crab and an abacus), or the halibutterflies (halibut and butterflies).  And "A Wren Was Once a Tennant" is reminiscent of Ogden Nash in the way it plays with spelling -- the wren is evicted for not paying "wrent."  The poems are often less inventive than Silverstein's.  Instead of exploring the full implication of an idea, some poems are merely inventive lists, or rely upon animals acting out of the norm.  Still, the book could be a vocabulary expander as Prelutsky does not shy away from words like "evicted, surmise, uncanny, ineluctable, infallibly, or abhor."  And as my friend April pointed out, because these words need to fit the meter of the line, the poems often give a suggestion about how to pronounce these potentially unfamiliar terms, too.  Have a dictionary or parent handy while you read.

Ideas

The book would be great for a child who has exhausted Shel Silverstein or as a transition from Silverstein to Carroll (or vice versa).  Because much of the humor is in combing two words to make neologisms or writing about animals acting out of character, it might not take much work for children to come up with their own scenarios.  The meter that Prelutsky uses -- like Silverstein's -- is insistent.  So, perhaps a poetry workshop could be in order after reading the poems.