The book is short – just 14 pages or so – and a small trim size, designed to be held by tiny hands. It’s printed on thick card stock and laminated to give it durabilty.

Each page introduces animals having fun – dancing, trying on hats, drinking juice together, coming home from a fair with balloons and ice cream cones, going out for a group jog.

And there, looking on wistfully from the next page, by herself, is a hippopotamus. The expression on her face tells us that she has FOMO. She envies the other animals their experiences and the fact that they have those experiences with friends. She wishes she could be doing what the others are doing.

And then it happens: towards the end of the book, the other animals – who had been jogging away – come back. They come back and say, “Hey! Come join the lot of us!” The hippopotamus, faced with the opportunity to get what she has clearly been wanting, has to make a choice:

“Should she stay? Should she go?”

“But YES the hippopotamus!” she cries gleefully, running towards them on the next page.

Leaving a wistful armadillo gazing after her.

I like the smart crafting of this book. All the other animals – hog and frog, cat and rat, bear and hare, moose and goose – are single-syllable words, while Hippopotamus (and Armadillo) are not just polysyllabic, they are really fun to say out loud, making Hippo (and Armadillo) stand out from their peers. And, in the book’s layout, Hippo is either on a facing page, or separated by being in the background, smaller than the animals having fun out front. When the Hippo faces her final dilemma, she is on the right-side page and, to find her solution, you have to turn the page, and then she is on the left-side page for the first time in the whole book, running towards the left, as if she will jump back to the previous left-side page where all the other animals are awaiting her.

I also love what this book has to say about seizing life. My friends and colleagues may tell you that I am not the most extroverted person in the world¹. But when my husband and I went to a friends’ wedding, and my husband said he was worried he wouldn’t have a good time because our friend would be busy hosting and we wouldn’t know anyone else, I proved him wrong: I introduced us to another couple while we were waiting for the bride and groom to emerge from the chapel so we could pelt them with rice, and struck up a conversation. I introduced us to some other folks as we were walking to the park nearby where the reception was held, and struck up a conversation with them. And I met another couple while we were waiting to check our coats, and struck up a conversation there. We all ended up sitting together and had an enjoyable time.

No looking on from the sidelines like a hippopotamus.

So, if you are feeling left out or lonely, don’t wait for an invitation from the other animals: just ask, can I sit with you? And join them.

Perhaps they will encourage you to join them for other adventures, too, like trying on funny hats.

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1. First, the most extroverted person in the world was my cousin, Pam. The night before her funeral, I found myself going out for food alone. Looking around the brightly lit, loud, restaurant, filled with people eating Mexican food, I thought, “If Pam were here, she’d no everyone’s name in 10 minutes and by the time she left, she’d have a new best friend. And I will take my food to go and eat alone in my hotel room and hate it.” Pam had a gift that her brother shares; and I’ve never understood it. I don’t consider myself introverted – though the extrovert in the office next to mine giggled when I told him Myers-Briggs got my “I” wrong. ↩︎