Hippopotabus

Hippopotabus is an amusing look at life, full of fun and puns, conveying a sense of the bewilderment that children face when confronted with language. This is Doug’s first book. (Publisher’s blurb)

My first book was published because a writer and editor called Michael Dugan spent time with me and helped me understand which parts of my submitted manuscript were bad and which were okay. I was fourteen and he was twenty-six, so he seemed incredibly old and wise to me. A lot of writers in Australia owe their careers to Michael. He’s dead now and we miss him. He was encouraging, generous and bad at golf. I was worse. We spent a few Saturday afternoons annoying other golfers at the Wattle Park Golf Course.

Sometimes I moan about Hippotabus. But if Michael hadn’t done such a good editing job, I doubt that I would ever have been published again. And I do like A Damaged Alphabet Rhyme, which is the best thing in the book. Here is a slightly updated version:

A is for apple, with black-and-white stripe
B is for boat, we eat when it’s ripe
C is for carrot, a sailor’s best friend
D is for dog, with sprouts at the end
E is for egg, that’s shaggy all over
F is for frog, that we stick in pavlova
G is for God, that bounces away
H is for hairdo, to which we all pray
I is for igloo, on top of your head
J is for Jesus, an eskimo’s shed
K is for kitten, that walks on the sea
L is for lion, as sweet as can be
M is for mother, with teeth that destroy
N is for nudist, that gives us all joy
O is for onion, that doesn’t wear pants
P is for pony (they eat them in France)
Q is for queen, we ride to Dimboola,
R is for rooster, our glorious ruler
S for sandwich, that crows when it’s light
T is for tigers, we all love to bite
U is for undies, that often attack
V is for vampires, that creep up your crack
W is for whiskers (we’re frightened of those)
X is for x-rays, which come from your nose
Y is for you, revealing our bones
A is for zebras, who read stupid poems.

I did the illustrations and the cover. Maybe I misspelled my name so that it would fit? I’m not quite sure what happened there.

Hippopotabus was printed in Hong Kong. The pages were stitched together and blobs of glue were added to the stitching, so it was a very sturdy little hardback. But something went wrong. On many of the books, blobs of glue were also added to the outer edge of the pages, meaning that a lot of copies literally could not be opened. If you do find a copy, you may notice some unfortunate tearing here and there, where the person has struggled to open the book. Those who did manage to open it were rewarded with this ...