Ooko

by Esmé Shapiro

Overview

Ooko has everything a fox could want: a stick, a leaf and a rock. Well, almost everything . . . Ooko wants someone to play with too! The foxes in town always seem to be playing with their two-legged friends, the Debbies. Maybe if he tries to look like the other foxes, one of the Debbies will play with him too. But when Ooko finally finds his very own Debbie, things don't turn out quite as he had expected!
     A quirky, funny, charmingly illustrated story about finding friendship and being true to yourself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780735267121
Publisher:	Tundra
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Pages:	36
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 8.13(h) x 0.79(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

ESMÉ SHAPIRO grew up in Laurel Canyon, California and Ontario, Canada. Currently she and her dog, Chebini Brown, split their time between Brooklyn and New York’s Hudson Valley. A graduate of The Rhode Island School of Design, Esmé is a past recipient of both the Nancy Lee Rhodes Roberts Scholarship and The SILA West 53 Gold Award-Phillip Hayes Scholarship. She has exhibited at The Society of Illustrators and her work has been featured in Taproot and Plansponsor magazines. Ooko is her very first picture book. Connect with her online at esmeshapiroillustration.com, on twitter and Instagram @esmeshapiro.

Editorial Reviews

05/16/2016
Stories about wanting a friend abound, but newcomer Shapiro’s unfolds in a gloriously distinctive world. Ooko, an orange fox shaped a bit like a beanbag, lives in a forest full of prehistoric-looking foliage and anemone-tentacled flowers. She spies another “fox” (it’s a dog, actually) playing with “furless, two-legged fox” (a human girl). When the human’s mother calls out, “Debbie! Watch out!” Ooko concludes that all humans are called Debbies. A Debbie, Ooko decides, would play with her if she looked more like one of their foxes. She succeeds in tricking herself out as various dogs, but life with the Debbie who claims her is not all it’s cracked up to be, as the woman imprisons Ooko in a dog sweater. “This game is too itchy!” moans Ooko. A raccoon hiding under a rock issues a more tempting invitation: “This is my stick. This is my other stick. And this is my other other stick. Wanna play?” The message about being true to oneself isn’t delivered so much by the text as it is by Shapiro’s inimitably daffy world. Ages 3–7. Agent: Charlotte Sheedy, Charlotte Sheedy Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

An Amazon Editors' Best of the Month (3-5), December 2016

PRAISE FOR Ooko:

"Playful, joyous and hip." —Kirkus Reviews

"Shapiro is on to something here: a hard to define “Ooko-ness,” that is lovely, invigorating and pure." —Quill & Quire

"There are some books that are almost not even worth reviewing, simply because their merits are too obvious that they’re primed to become a hit without any outside help . . . this is one of those books. . . . Shapiro’s sugar-spun world that exists on these pages is an idyllic and compassionate place, where life lessons are learned at a softly rolling pace." —Globe and Mail

"The weird effervescence . . . gets me every time." —Jewish Currents

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
PreS-Gr 1—This picture book debut stars a fox who has it all: a stick, a leaf, a rock—everything except a friend. Ooko searches in the forest to no avail. When he notices a pet dog and hears a brown-skinned mother warning her daughter, Debbie, to be aware of the fox, he thinks: "I want a Debbie too!" Ooko then imitates the attributes he believes will make him appealing as he observes other "Debbies" playing with their "foxes." He sports spots to look like a Dalmatian, cotton candy to look like a poodle, etc. The cumulative effect is amusing. A nearsighted white woman with an enormous gray bun and very hairy legs mistakes Ooko for her "Ruthie," and for a short time both are happy, until a bath and itchy sweater lead to misery. Ultimately, a chance encounter with a friendly raccoon helps the protagonist realize "I don't need to look like the other foxes to find a friend" and "to each their own." Grammatical considerations aside, these messages and the desire to have a friend are certainly ideas to which young listeners can relate. The compositions are rendered in an autumnal palette with gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil. VERDICT Purchase for those who enjoy the quirky caricatures and stylized, slightly off-kilter settings and folk art worlds of Giselle Potter and Maira Kalman.—Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library

School Library Journal

2016-05-04
Ooko, a fox looking for a friend, finds one—and also makes some self-discoveries along the way.In the initial double-page spread—backgrounded by bright foliage and a quaint village—a friendly-looking, stylized, furry, orange creature introduces itself: "I am Ooko. I am a fox." Ooko then introduces readers to its natural playthings, including a stick, and admits that the one missing element is "a friend to play with." Children will enjoy the absurd humor of text and artwork as the fox, in its search for a friend, lifts up a moose to look underneath and sighs, "Not here either." The humor continues as the fox imagines that domesticated dogs are foxes and that, because one dog is being led about by a girl of color named Debbie, all humans are called "Debbies." The story gets funnier and funnier as Ooko tries to emulate dogs and earn a Debbie for a friend. When an adult, white Debbie with temporary vision problems mistakes Ooko for her dog, Ooko is shocked to discover the discomforts of domesticity. The droll illustrations of the fox grimacing through a bath, a collar, a dog jacket, and a walk on a leash end with rescue by a new friend from the wild. The book's final words cement the fact that neither Ooko nor the new friend has been assigned a gender.Playful, joyous, and hip. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews