Mike Twohy

The book begins when a hippo accidentally causes a painting mouse to fall into a pond. The hippo saves the mouse, and the mouse paints a portrait of of the hippo out of gratitude. However, instead of a portrait, the mouse paints his entire tiny canvas grey because the hippo is so big. The hippo returns the gift with a portrait of his own of the mouse, which ends up being a tiny speck on a large canvas. Regardless of their massive size differences, the two characters help each other and begin show more what appears to be a great friendship. This book uses a dialogue-only style of writing with cartoon style illustrations with muted colors to tell its story.

The central message of this book is that friendships can occur regardless of personal differences. The author uses two very physically different animals to represent this idea, and shows how compromises, understanding, and acceptance can strengthen relationships and result in positive outcomes for everyone. show less

I really enjoyed reading this book because I thought it was quite charming. First, the text and fonts used by the author were very colorful, expressive (used interjections) and helped to identify which of the characters was speaking. Second, I also really like the fact that the author highlights the friendship between Hippo and Mouse despite their differences (ie. different animals, one lives in the water and the other on land, one is bit bigger and the other a bit smaller.) For example, show more while each character takes a turn painting the other, their finished paintings present an accurate representation of how the other looks from their respective point of views. Hippo’s portrait of Mouse is a little brown dot, while Mouse’s portrait of Hippo is a canvas completely covered in gray. Lastly, my favorite thing about this book is that it mixes humor, while also encouraging young students to open to making friends with people who might be different from you! show less

This is such a fun take on an alphabet book...it tells a story of a mouse being chased by a dog using each letter of the alphabet

Short Summary: A really sweet story about a pig that is very shy and doesn't have any friends but meets a turtle who is also very shy in the library and becomes really good friends with him. The images are friendly and warm, giving the theme of approachability and friendship a nice touch.

Personal Reflection: Lots of kids in preschool (and above too) are shy and may be weary of making new friends. This is a great read aloud for younger kids to get them thinking about finding friends and that show more everyone is shy. I liked that the pictures share more than what the words say, too, which makes it easy to talk about what kids think is happening between friends. show less