The story begins…

Posted on May 6, 2014

When Leanne was a little girl, she had a soft toy hippo that she dressed in a red hoodie and loved dearly. She loved him so much that “Hippo,” as he was creatively known, got very dirty from all the play. So he was placed in the washing machine for a good clean. Sadly, Hippo did not enjoy the experience, as you might have guessed. He emerged very wet, and missing one of his two pink nostrils. Though Leanne is now older, she still has that dear old hippo sitting on her shelf. He’s been with her through all the good and bad. And now he has a new life as the star of Hickory Hippo!

When Rod met Leanne, he also met Hippo and introduced him to Platypus, a soft toy that he had kept since childhood. (Yes, Rod and Leanne both lacked originality when it came to naming their childhood friends!) Platypus has a story of his own. When Rod was a young lad, he was playing with his mother’s curling iron… never a good idea! It set fire to a beautiful wood chest and one of the sparks landed on Platypus, burning his webbed foot. Fortunately Rod’s mother was able to stop the house from catching fire, though Platypus has had a scar on his webbed-foot ever since.

Not long after Leanne and Rod were married, they decided they wanted to write and illustrate a children’s story together and that it should star their childhood friends, Hippo and Platypus. And so they gave them new lives and new looks as Hickory Hippo and Plato Platypus in the little village of Leaflake. Rod was inspired by the works of Alfred Bestall, writer and artist behind a childhood hero of his, Rupert Bear. For Leanne it was the children’s series Arthur by Marc Brown, and The Snowman by Raymond Briggs. It is Rod and Leanne’s hope that they might capture some of the wonder, mystery and adventure that excited them as children and inspire a new generation of young readers to imagine adventures of their own!

We hope you will join Rod, Leanne and Hickory on an adventure or two!

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