When I was a kid, there was this awesome picture book I read, one of the sort where the writer/artist had put in all sorts of diagrams and little details and so on, and it was about this race of tiny, fuzzy hippopotamus-like people divided into two kingdoms which were at war. But I can’t remember the name of it.
Is this ringing a bell with anybody?
UPDATE: In comments MIB correctly identifies it as Trouble For Trumpets, which now checking eBay I discover is stupidly expensive. And what’s worse is that at some point I’ll buy it, because that’s the sort of book I wanna read with my kids if and when I have any.
Related Articles
14 users responded in this post
Hippo-Emperor of Dune?
You’re not talking about the Moomins, are you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomin
You may be thinking of Trouble for Trumpets, which has these incredibly detailed, full-spread drawings that my dad, who is a surrealist painter, just loved: http://www.amazon.com/1984-Trouble-Trumpets-First-American/dp/B001G7JXOK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265056862&sr=1-2
OK, to jump on the bandwagon (not that anyone other than Christopher is on it)…
There is a kids book about koala bears whose trees are eaten by locusts. They’re saved when kangaroos (I think it was kangaroos) carry them to a new place. The koalas find a bunch of of circus equipment (from crashed airplane?) and pay the kangas (or whatevers) back by putting on a show. The climax of which is shooting a koala thru the hole in the big tent roof, but when he comes down he’s covered in locusts. They’re back and the kangas/whatevers help again.
Can’t at all remember a title but the pictures, especially of the descending locust-covered koala are still sharp years later. Any ideas?
I can’t be the moomins, because I’m pretty sure that I dreamt that weird moomin episode where the moomins hid the black moomin in their cellar ala ann frank when evil nazi moomins invaded moomin valley.
And other than that, there was no real inter-tribal conflict depicted in the Moomins.
FWIW, it’s still expensive on abebooks.com but nowhere near as horrible as the Amazon prices.
Oh man, and I just found my old copies of the TRUMPETS books! Damn straight, those are prime “save to read to your children” books.
I’m not holding out a metric buttload of hope or anything here, but my brother-in-law is a hard-to-find book-selling genius (I want to hyphenate this post further, but I’m not sure where else I could squeeze some in). If there is an *affordable* copy of your funky book that is either located in or can be shipped to the Midwest, he will find it.
And Sean, I don’t know if you found it yet, but your book appears to be Bear Circus, by Will Pene du Bois.
That’s it, Cookie! Thanks!!
And in under three hours!
I remember reading that book many, many times when I was a kid. I think it was at my grandmother’s house. My cousins liked it too, though, so I think whoever has kids first gets it.
You think those prices are horrible, I bought Miracleman (all of it).
Apparently this is not the book you’re looking for, but your description reminded me of ‘Vinook Vinook’ (I might not have it spelled right), which I read when I was a kid. I thought it was a pretty awesome, but I haven’t been able to find out anything about it since then.
At first I thought you were talking about The Way Things Work, until I read it again and realized the diagrams were about these hippopotamus things, not with them just appearing.