Otto's Orange Day: Toon Books Level 3

by Jay Lynch, Frank Cammuso (Illustrator)

Overview

When Otto the Cat meets a magical genie, he knows just what to wish for: he makes the whole world orange! At first, this new, bright world seems like a lot of fun, but when his mom serves orange spinach for lunch, Otto realizes that his favorite color isn’t the best color for everything.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935179276
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	08/06/2013
Series:	Toon: Level 3
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Frank Cammuso, who drew Otto’s adventure, lives in Syracuse, New York, where he is the award-winning political cartoonist for the Syracuse Post-Standard. He is the Eisner-nominated creator of Max Hamm Fairy Tale Detective, selected as one of the Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2006 by Booklist, and is at work on Knights of the Lunch Table, a middle school version of King Arthur and his Knights. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Village Voice and Slate.

Jay Lynch, who wrote Otto’s story, was born in Orange, NJ (honest, ORANGE, NJ!). He now lives in upstate New York with his wife, his dog, and way too many cats. He is the founder of Bijou Funnies, one of the first and most important underground comics of the Sixties, and for many years wrote the weekly syndicated comic strip, Phoebe and the Pigeon People. He has helped create some of Topps Chewing Gum’s most popular humor products, such as Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 1-3 -Two veteran cartoonists collaborate to create a comic-strip-style book for beginning readers. Otto, an orange cat, receives a mysterious lamp from his aunt. While dusting it off, he releases the genie that resides within and is offered a wish as a reward. Otto declares that he would like everything in the world to be orange, his favorite color; however, after his wish is granted, the results-including a bad-tasting orange lamb chop and an orange-only traffic light that causes car accidents-soon cause him to have second thoughts. With the help of Aunt Sally Lee, Otto outsmarts the genie and sets things right. Each page features one to four panels, and the bulk of the story is told through dialogue balloons. The cartoons are lively and colorful. Clear chapter divisions, a clean graphic design, and large-size print make this title more appropriate for early readers than most comic-book offerings. Still, true beginners may have trouble with some of the vocabulary and struggle to follow the narrative flow. Offer this to book readers with a bit of experience under their belts and an interest in comics and cartoons.-Joy Fleishhacker , School Library Journal

School Library Journal

Young Otto loves orange so much that when a sly genie rises up out of an old lamp he receives from Aunt Sally Lee, he uses his one wish to turn all the world that color. His ensuing bliss changes to blues, though, after he gets a gander at his orange lunch and then sees what happens on the street when every traffic light is the same color. Cammuso illustrates comics veteran Lynch's tale in neatly drawn sequential panels, casting Otto as a cat (marmalade, of course) in human dress and pairing him with a blue, distinctly Disneyesque genie. Discovering that said genie hasn't eaten in 880 years, Otto cleverly calls on the persuasive power of pizza to reverse the wish, and by the end all's well. Low on violence and high on production values, this comics-format "Toon Book" will leave emergent readers wishing for more. (Early reader. 5-7)

Kirkus Reviews