Reading a Childhood Favorite

When I was younger, my sister, dad and I would curl up before bed time and read There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake.  I can't say exactly why we loved this book so much, but it was a frequent withdrawal from the school library.  In high school, I took a children's literature class and one of our assignments was to bring in a copy of our favorite book and give a little speech about it.  My efforts to locate a copy of There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof failed, and I settled for The Velveteen Rabbit, a book that I had liked that my sophomore lit teacher had given to me as a present.  Disappointed, I gave up hope of ever finding it.

Until... a month ago my boyfriend located it on Amazon.  After hearing me talk about it, he bought it for me.  It finally showed up Thursday, just in time for me to show it to my sister who is normally off at college, but is visiting my grandmother's this weekend for Easter, as am I.

As soon as I arrived at my grandmother's house last night, I whipped out the book and showed it to my sister.  Later, we had story book time and read the book to our boyfriends and grandmother.  We even showed the pictures as we read.

I have to say, we were quite surprised by what happened in the book... the little girl kind of sounds like a creeper.  For example, she mentions that the hippopotamus on the roof likes to watch television.  The text reads, "He watches. I know he does."  The "I know he does" sounded a little creepy.  It's weird looking at things you loved when you're an adult.