larrys's review
Margaret Mahy is a master of this type of storybook. In this classic, first published 1975, a boy is followed home by a hippo, then many hippos. A local witch is summoned to fix the problem. The humour of this story lies mainly in the pragmatic approach to the problem’s solution; no one is particularly surprised that such a bizarre thing is happening. The father is so anxious to get the problem solved (because the hippos are damaging his lawn – not because hippos are the most dangerous animal on the African landscape) that he doesn’t listen carefully to the witch. Sure enough, the boy is next followed home by a lot of giraffes.
Coming back to Mahy’s books, I feel a bit ripped off, because I was born after this book was published, and I grew up in New Zealand (where Mahy lives) and for some reason I never grew up with her books. Instead, I was surrounded by the work of Enid Blyton and a whole lot of Disney stuff, yet something tells me that had I been introduced to these stories at the right age, I would have been entranced by the magic.
I did meet Margaret Mahy in person, at a Young Author’s Conference in Nelson. She was wearing the wig of a clown and told us that she’d been a terrible liar as a child. She used to pretend she was a farm animal, and even ate grass once to prove the point.
Coming back to Mahy’s books, I feel a bit ripped off, because I was born after this book was published, and I grew up in New Zealand (where Mahy lives) and for some reason I never grew up with her books. Instead, I was surrounded by the work of Enid Blyton and a whole lot of Disney stuff, yet something tells me that had I been introduced to these stories at the right age, I would have been entranced by the magic.
I did meet Margaret Mahy in person, at a Young Author’s Conference in Nelson. She was wearing the wig of a clown and told us that she’d been a terrible liar as a child. She used to pretend she was a farm animal, and even ate grass once to prove the point.
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