Veronica

Title: Veronica

Author and Illustrator: Roger Duvoisin

Genre: Fantasy

Awards: None

Age Group: Pre-K–2nd

Of course I had to read Veronica since we share a name! This book is all about an unhappy hippopotamus, Veronica, who just wants to be conspicuous. She decides that she will take a little trip and head out to the city, where maybe she would become famous! Things don't go quite as planned for Veronica, although she most definitely is conspicuous there. No one seems to understand her, and she just seems to be in everybody's way. Veronica blocks the traffic, takes a nap in the parking lot, splashes in the fountain, eats a whole cart of vegetables, and is breaking rules left and right. This gets poor Veronica a trip to jail. Although she doesn't know what jail is, she knows it isn't where she wants to go. In fact, she wants to be back with her hippopotamus family again. Luckily, a nice old lady gets Veronica out of jail and sends her back to home. And in the end, Veronica got exactly what she wanted. She was the most popular hippopotamus in her mudbank, and everyone wanted to hear her tales of the city!

I may be biased because of the title, but Veronica is such a cute book! I remember my mom reading this book to my 2nd grade class and I was so embarrassed because my namesake was a hippo that gets into a ton of trouble, haha! I will definitely use this book in my classroom, because it is one that doesn't get much recognition but is a good story with amazing illustrations! It makes for a funny read aloud but still tells a good lesson (be careful what you wish for? there's no place like home? the grass is always greener on the other side? we won't always be understood by others?)

This book is great for lower elementary, so Pre-K through 2nd grade! The language is simple and the plot easy to follow. 

One lesson idea that stood out to me to go along with Veronica would be to do a vocabulary focus on the word conspicuous, which has a big role in this book seeing as Veronica is unhappy being inconspicuous. This is a big word for many children, which lends the perfect opportunity to talk about it! Students could do a writing/drawing activity in which they brainstorm and write about something that is conspicuous, whether make-believe or in real-life. Then they could illustrate the situation that they wrote about.