Mouse and Hippo by Mike Twohy

Mike Twohy surprised us by snapping up a 2017 Geisel honor for Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run! -- will he repeat that feat with his most recent effort?

In Mouse and Hippo, an artistic mouse sets up his easel on what he supposes to be a rock.  When the "rock" has an itch, dumping mouse in the lake, it's revealed that the mouse was actually standing on a hippo. Hippo rescues Mouse from his watery fate, and the two become fast friends. They paint each others' portraits, to great comic effect (Hippo is so large that Mouse's paper is a wash of gray, while Mouse appears as a tiny dot on Hippo's page). Both are pleased with the results, and it appears to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

This is another example of a book that is clearly intended as a picture book, but has some strengths when viewed through the eyes of a beginning reader. The text in this story is entirely dialogue, indicated not by the typical speech tags ("said Mouse," "he replied"), but with font style and color.  Mouse "speaks" in a thin reddish-brown serif font, while Hippo's bolder sans serif font is shaded dark gray.  Though neither is a typical choice for beginning reader books, both fonts are generously sized, and text is placed within the book's abundant white space.  Sentences are typically short and straightforward. The book's casual writing style means that not all sentences are complete; there are several sentence fragments.  While there's some potentially challenging vocabulary, many of the words (portrait, easel, etc.) are repeated, and the illustrations often help to clarify the meaning.

How will this book fare with beginning readers?  Will they trip over the differing font styles, or appreciate how the change in color and style indicates who's speaking?  Will they stumble over new vocabulary, or catch enough clues in the illustrations to sail right through?  Either way, I suspect that they will appreciate the book's humor, the new-found friendship between the characters, and the way the story moves briskly to its pleasant conclusion.  All in all, it's a book well worth examining in light of the Geisel criteria.