2011 Letters Project: #121 is mine!

Renee from "2011 Letters Project" kindly posted the following entry on her blog this week:

Letter #121 from Canada

Letter #121 comes from Elaine in Canada. Unfortunately the package arrived open with no letter inside, so I'm not sure if there was a letter enclosed or not, but she did send us a lovely book! After perusing the book, my daughter realized that the person who sent the book was also one of the authors of the book. How amazing is that?! It's our first author to participate in our project. Her wonderful book is titled The Hippo and the Unicorn: A Rainbow of Words, which happens to be a series of letters between an earthy hippopotamus named Hroshi and an ethereal unicorn named Evangeline ... it's a cute story about our favorite thing, penpal letters. I wish I would have had a book like this when I was a kid.

Here is the Pre-story that is found inside the book:

"Would you write to me?"

Imaginary or imaginative? You decide.
It all began with a phone call, late one starry night, between two friends...

"Evangeline, dear, would you be interested in corresponding with me?" asked Hroshi the hippo.


On the other end of the telephone, in a cozy abode in  Cochrane, came an immediate affirmative response from Evangeline the unicorn.

Thus, dear reader, The Hippo and the Unicorn: A Rainbow of Words was brought into being.

Soon both correspondents were inscribing their thoughts and dreams onto writing paper, tucking the letters into multi-hued envelopes, addressing them and licking them shut, and trundling off to the post office to mail them.

Now that their first letter-anthology has been compiled, Hroshi and Evangline invite you to lift the flap of each envelope to see what lies inside. May your hearts be coloured by their rainbow of words.

"It's something I've always dreamed of."

This is definitely a great book and should be in all schools. It's an easy book for kids to read and looks so fun to read. It really brings the fun of letter writing back to kids who may not even know what the word penpal even means in these days of texting and facebook. This is the type of book I would be thrilled seeing my child bring home from school or the library, since it's a nice change from most of the books available for kids these days that pressures them to grow up or all this vampire craze.

This book makes you remember the fun of being a kid and having a special friendship with a deep connection, through the art of letter writing. It's the type of book that your child can read alone, but I also think it's the type of book that is best to be shared and read out loud with a loved one by your side.

I would definitely recommend this book. The publisher of the book is iUniverse, so I believe you can maybe buy the book through their website, iuniverse.com [and through Amazon, or from the authors].


This will be a special book that I will read out loud with my youngest daughter and I'm sure it will provoke a lot of conversations about writing and friendships. I hope the next books in the series will come out soon because I just know we will have to have those, too. :)


Please enjoy her book below and thanks so much, Elaine, for sending us this great book!