Hippo was hot and thought how wonderful it would be to live in the water. Hippo pleaded with the god of Everything and Everywhere to let him live in the rivers and streams.

Ngai agreed Hippo could live in the water but only if he promised not to eat the little fishes and to come out of the water at night and eat grass.

The story of how Hippo came to live in the river instead of on dry land.

This book is part of a book series called African Animal Tales .

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 1999 by Hachette Children's Group .

Illustrator: Adrienne Kennaway moved from Kenya to London when she was 15 to study at the Ealing School of Art. Later she attended L'Academia de Belle Arte in Rome. It was on her return to Kenya that she began illustrating the picture books that have made her well known. BRUCE HOBSON writes as Mwenye Hadithi (pronounced m-when-yay hadee thee) which simply means a story-teller in Swahili. His work is published internationally and he lives in Nairobi. Bruce designs and plants tropical landscapes for a living, but also writes.