Who's Hiding?

Madeleine asked Ethan to read one of her favorite books this morning, "Who's Hiding" by Satoru Onishi. For those unfamiliar with the book, it starts off with two pages of animals lined up in rows, with a label underneath each animal:



Following this introduction, each subsequent set of pages features the same animals in the exact same spots, without labels. In each pair of pages, some small variation has occurred, and a question is posed at the top of the left-hand page, addressing the variation. Roughly every other page, the color of the backdrop changes, and the question posed is "Who's hiding?" Depending on the color of the backdrop, certain animals will blend into the background color and "disappear."



Other questions asked in the in-between pages are "Who's crying?", "Who's sleeping?", "Who has horns?" and "Who's backwards?"



The final page features a black backdrop, with only the eyes of each animal showing, and asks the child, "Who's who?"




Madeleine has been a fan of this book for a long time, and never had a problem identifying the various animals by name in the past, but today she was either too excited to get to the next page or had temporarily forgotten which animal was which, because her answers were a far cry from her usual responses.

ETHAN: (reading) Who's hiding?
MADELEINE: (energetically pointing to each camouflaged animal) Um, dat one, dat one, dat one-
ETHAN: Yeah, but what ARE they?
MADELEINE: Um, AMMIMALS!
ETHAN: Yes, but what animals are they? What's that one?
MADELEINE: Um, I don't know what dat one is.
JULIA: Madeleine, ell---, ell---, ELE--
MADELEINE: PHANT!
ETHAN: Good job. Who has horns?
MADELEINE: (again, energetically pointing) Um, dat one, dat one, dat one...
ETHAN: (stopping her at the sheep) Who's this one?
MADELEINE: Um, I don't know who dat one is.
ETHAN: Baaaaa, baaaaaa.
MADELEINE: The giraffe don't have HORNS!
ETHAN: The giraffe does have horns, honey, but that's not a giraffe. That's a sheep.
MADELEINE: (pointing to the pig) Dat one doesn't have horns, dat one just have EARS.


On the final page, "Who's who?", Madeleine seemed off to a good start, but quickly went downhill.

ETHAN: Who's that?
MADELEINE: Um, a rhinoceros.
ETHAN: Good job!
MADELEINE: (pointing at the pig) And dat one's the DOG!
JULIA: That's not the dog, Madeleine, the dog is up here.
ETHAN: (pointing to the sheep) Who's that?
MADELEINE: Um, a rhinoceros.
ETHAN: No, you already got the rhinoceros. It's over here. This is the one you can never remember. Baaaaa! Baaaaaa!
MADELEINE: Um, a MONKEY!
ETHAN: Sheeeeee-
JULIA: Sheeeeee-
MADELEINE: SHEEEEE!
ETHAN: Sheep. Okay, who's that? (pointing to the hen)
MADELEINE: Um, the hen. COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOOOOO!
ETHAN: (pointing to the kangaroo) Who's that?
MADELEINE: Um, a rhinoceros.

And so forth. At one point, Ethan even resorted to singing a song from "Go, Diego, Go!" to jog Madeleine's memory.

ETHAN: (pointing at the hippo) Madeleine, what's this one?
MADELEINE: Um, a rhinoceros.
ETHAN: Nope, you already got the rhinoceros. This one is the...
MADELEINE: I don't know what dat one is.
ETHAN: (breaking into song) Because we're SYMBIOTIC!
JULIA: The HIPPO!
ETHAN: Madeleine, do you remember what animal that song is about?
MADELEINE: Um, DIEGO!
ETHAN: Yes, it was from Diego, but do you remember what animal it's about?
JULIA: I do! The hippo and the bird!
MADELEINE: Yeah, the AQUA PET!
JULIA: (scathingly) Madeleine, it's the OX PECKER, not the AQUA PET.

I thought it was the rhinoceros, myself.