Feel good coming of age story about an obese Mexican child named Juan and his pet hippopotamus, Emal, short for emalmagrar.  Juan’s father is a furniture stainer, and the hippo accidentally got into the ochre one day, turning himself a dusty brown.  It also provides opportunity to use the line, “Once you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Emal!”  Perhaps a mean neighbor could exclaim this, though there’d have to be a reason she’s speaking English instead of Spanish, and why she’d know “them all” can be contracted to “‘em all”, a homonym for “Emal”.

The story follows Juan’s attempts to get into shape growing up as a pudgy little kid, just as Emal grows and grows into a massive hippopotamus, and Juan’s personal mascot.  Despite their hi-jinx, the town loves Emal, until one day he gores the major, and then there’s a sort of “Old Yeller” situation, but with a stick of dynamite slipped into a bunch of carrots instead of a rifle.