Bernardosaurus says:Bernardosaurus says:I've always loved anagrams. My favorite game in elementary school was when a teacher would print a big word on the blackboard and ask us to make as many words out of it as possible. I dedicated Hippopotamus Hunt "to all the wonderful teachers who play this find-a-word game with their students."
My book is about Word Hunters hunting for a hippopotamus. They are trying to capture as many words as they can out of H-I-P-P-O-P-O-T-A-M-U-S. When they find a word, "us" for example, the reader sees the leftover letters, H-I-P-P-O-T-A-M, hidden in the background.
This was one of my most challenging books to illustrate. The letters in each illustration were hand-lettered by me. I first learned to letter in high school (The School of Industrial Art, now known as The High School of Art and Design). I studied the many different forms of letters and typography, and I learned to draw many typefaces by memory. Even though I am left-handed, I became very good at lettering, a skill I used in my long advertising career and one I enjoy using in my children's books. I even had fun lettering my name at the end of the book when the hippopotamus shows the Word Hunters a surprise place where they can find the "most" words. The back endpapers show the word hunters carrying a cage filled with all the words they captured.