Little Hippo: Story Corner: Ms Stubbins Dances Ann Bryant (Writer), Arthur Robins (Illustrator) List Price: £3.99 Paperback - 29 pages (20 August, 1999) Scholastic Children's Books; ISBN: 0590114115 Ms Stubbins loves to dance, and her neighbour, Mrs Griggs, loves to watch her secretly - it takes her mind off how lonely she is, and how boring all her scrubbing and cleaning is. But Ms Stubbins's other neighbour, Miss Ratchett - whose favourite occupation is mowing her carpet with her big sit-on mower - doesn't like her dancing or her music. One day, Miss Ratchett gets so angry she gets quite carried away - and the result changes the life of all three women forever... This is a funny, hopeful, little picture book that takes a situation that could be quite tragic and finds in it a lot to be optimistic about. The prose of the story is interspersed with odd little bits of rhyme that lift it beyond the ordinary - they'd be great for a child and adult to read together - and the cartoonish illustrations are full of life and vigour. Return to index