Book summary:
In
this book, Otto, the main character, loves the color orange. His aunt gives him
a magic lamp for his birthday, and he wishes for everything to be orange. At
first he thinks this is great, but when he starts having to eat all orange food
he starts to see the parts that are not so good. He sees that with the traffic
lights being all one color, cars have accidents because they do not know what
color the light is. He calls his aunt, who gave him the lamp. She makes a wish,
and the genie of the lamp then turns everything blue. This doesn’t make them
happy either, but they soon quickly find a way to get the genie to change
things back to normal.
APA reference:
Cammuso,
F., & Lynch, J. (2008). Otto’s orange
day. New York: Little Lit Library.
My Impressions:
This
was a very fun little book. The drawings are very well done, and have lots of
expression and energy. There is a lot of action going on throughout the book,
and I think it will easily hold children’s interest. In the beginning, the
reader sees Otto’s excitement about the idea of everything being orange. He
goes through his day, amazed at how
wonderful everything is in orange. Then gradually the reader gets to see the
disadvantages: the orange food that tastes bad, the car accidents caused by the
orange traffic lights, and the sameness of everything being orange. When the
genie then turns everything blue, the reader wonders how it will ever be fixed.
Then Otto comes across the solution: the genie has not eaten for hundreds of
years. He orders a pizza for the genie, and the genie does not want to eat a
blue pizza, so he changes everything back. I think this will really appeal to
the imagination of children. The colors in the book are very well done; the
artist makes good use of different shades of orange and blue to keep the
drawings interesting even when they are monochromatic. The contrast, then, when
the colors go back to normal is great. It really leaves the reader appreciating
the variety of color that was not even really noticed in the beginning of the
story. I think younger children will find this book very fun, and they will
want to read it again and again.
Professional Review:
Karp,
J. (2008, March 15). [Review of the book Otto’s
Orange Day, by F. Cammuso & J. Lynch]. Booklist 104(4), p. 66.
K–Gr. 2. Written by
‘60s underground comic guru Lynch and Eisner-nominated Cammuso, who also did
the artwork, this book in the new TOON imprint gives emerging readers a high-quality
comic that is both loads of fun and easy to read. It’s a simple, archetypal
story: Otto, a little orange-loving cat, wishes “everything was orange,” but
when a genie grants his wish, he realizes that he should have been more careful
what he wished for: orange lamb chops . . . “Blaach!!!” This is a textbook example
of how to use page composition, expanding panel size, color, and stylized figures
to make sequential art fresh, energetic, and lively. With the particular
pedigree of the book’s creators,
however, one can’t help but miss avant-garde subversiveness that made Little
Lit books (e.g., Strange Stories for Strange Kids, 2001) for
older children so thrilling and unique. Even without that element, though, this
book is sure to engage a new generation in the art form; kids will want to read
it once, then return to it again and again.
—Jesse Karp
Library Uses:
This would be
a good book to build some children’s activities around. After reading the book
(or having it read to them at storytime), children could try to come up with
their own ideas of crazy things that could happen if everything were all one
color. They could do drawings to go with their ideas. They could also be
encouraged to think of other ways the genie could have been talked into
changing things back. I think this book is a good one for encouraging children
to use their imagination.
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