A purple hippo in a polka-dot room learns that there’s more to personal style than matchy-matchy. It’s a lesson worth the learning. In rhymes that set up each color for younger audiences to predict before the page turn, the portly protagonist rummages through her dresser, pairing her one red sock with…a blue one, then a green one, then a succession of other mismatches—none quite right—until she’s left with only one last option…polka dots. " ‘Well, it’s not perfect. / And it’s definitely not red. // But at least it matches / my room!’ she said." Young readers will survey the frustrated hippo’s increasingly cluttered digs with glee…and likely be unsurprised to discover (once she’s tottered off with a slipper on one foot and a spike heel on the other) that fugitive red sock crammed into a chair cushion. Mismatched socks pair up to demonstrate a broader point in C.K. Smouha and Eleonora Marton’s Sock Story (2019), but the suggestion here that “try, try again” with apparel choices (or anything else, for that matter) can lead to success, or at least some pleasant surprises, may inspire budding fashionistas to think outside the dresser drawer.A cheery invitation to sock synergy when same-old, same-old palls.