Here are 100 books that Otto fans have personally recommended if you like
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As a child, I was obsessed with comics, whether it was Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, or the Far Side, I would devour every one I could get my hands on. I discovered the joy of observing two storylines – the one the writing was telling me and one that the pictures were telling me. As I became a teacher, I realized the importance of pictures and stories working together to keep students engaged. The resurgence of graphic novels has now been a focus for me in my pedagogy practices as well as my pathway as an author-illustrator.
The Bad Guys series which chronicles the adventures of some stereotypically dangerous animals trying to do good and save the world pulled me in from page one.
You have humor (especially around bodily functions which always gets a giggle) and well-developed characters that are oftentimes naughty but incredibly likable. In the first episode, the book has been broken down into manageable chapters, the dialogue is not too lengthy and the high-paced illustrations communicate action and humor perfectly.
Young readers will certainly feel accomplished after completing this 144-page graphic novel.
"I wish I'd had these books as a kid. Hilarious!" -- Dav Pilkey, creator of Captain Underpants and Dog ManThis New York Times bestselling illustrated series is perfect for fans of Dog Man and Captain Underpants.They sound like bad guys, they look like bad guys . . . and they even smell like bad guys. But Mr. Wolf, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Snake, and Mr. Shark are about to change all of that...Mr. Wolf has a daring plan for the Bad Guys' first good mission. They are going to break two hundred dogs out of the…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I am a big fan of two things… one is graphic novels and the other is funny stuff! When those two things come together I am in my zone. I read lots of graphic novels when I was a kid and I've never really stopped. They are a great part of anyone’s reading diet. Now I write funny graphic novels for kids with my writing partner Jol. We’ve written 20 books to date including The Underdogs series, but there’s more to come!
Have you even noticed how pigeons are everywhere and we don’t really notice them?
Wouldn’t they make the best spies and the best crime fighters? Well the authors of this book think so and so do I.
This is a funny, funny graphic novel. Super easy for young readers who are looking to move out of picture books and want something more substantial but also safe and hilarious.
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's-wait, it really IS a bird! Take another look, because what looks like an ordinary pigeon might just be a hero saving your butt! Meet the crime-fighting pigeons secretly flying around chasing bad guys in this hilarious illustrated series perfect for fans of BAD GUYS and DOG MAN.
What do REAL PIGEONS do? They fight crime, of course! Wait, what? You didn't know your town is protected by a secret squad of crime-fighting feathered friends? Well, you are about to get schooled. REAL PIGEONS solve mysteries! REAL PIGEONS fight bad guys! And REAL PIGEONS…
I am a big fan of two things… one is graphic novels and the other is funny stuff! When those two things come together I am in my zone. I read lots of graphic novels when I was a kid and I've never really stopped. They are a great part of anyone’s reading diet. Now I write funny graphic novels for kids with my writing partner Jol. We’ve written 20 books to date including The Underdogs series, but there’s more to come!
The perfect present for DOG MAN fans - starring some of your favourite characters from the series! Welcome to the Cat Kid Comic Club, where Li'l Petey (LP), Flippy, and Molly introduce twenty-one rambunctious, funny, and talented baby frogs to the art of comic making.
As the story unwinds with mishaps and hilarity, readers get to see the progress, mistakes, and improvements that come with practice and persistence.
Squid Kid and Katydid, Baby Frog Squad, Gorilla Cheese Sandwich, and Birds Flowers Tree: A Haiku Photo Comic are just some of the mini-comics that are included as stories-within-the-story, each done in…
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist mom’s unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellie’s gymnastics and…
I am a big fan of two things… one is graphic novels and the other is funny stuff! When those two things come together I am in my zone. I read lots of graphic novels when I was a kid and I've never really stopped. They are a great part of anyone’s reading diet. Now I write funny graphic novels for kids with my writing partner Jol. We’ve written 20 books to date including The Underdogs series, but there’s more to come!
This one has a human in it but also a dog – the world’s cutest and sweetest dog Pawcasso.
So it’s not as side-splitting as my other recommendation but after all that laughing you’ll need to settle down with this heart-warming tale or should I say tail!
This is a story all about friendship and belonging and it will make you feel terrific!
Remy Lai, the award-winning creator of Pie in the Sky makes her middle-grade graphic novel debut, Pawcasso, about the unexpected friendship between the loneliest girl in class and the coolest canine in town.
A Booklist Editors' Choice Winner for 2021, Amazon Best Book of the Month, New York Public Library Best Book of the Year, and Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year
"It's tail-wagging entertaining!" ―Kelly Yang, New York Times bestselling author of Front Desk
Every Saturday, Pawcasso trots into town with a basket, a shopping list, and cash in paw to buy groceries for his family. One…
I’ve loved words ever since I discovered at age five that the word “pup” was a palindrome. My first published poem, “Kitten,” was written in third grade and was included in Valley View Elementary School’s annual creative writing booklet.
Since then, I’ve written loads of limericks, a heap of haiku, quarts of quatrains, two octos, and enough rhyming couplets to make Shakespeare plead “forsooth, enough already”. To the relief of the general public, I’ve only published one book of poetry. For now.
Almanac, did you say? Why yes, another delight for completionists like me!
There’s plenty of poetry scattered through these 365 entries, but I’m also intrigued by the satire and history pieces, many of which turn a sharp eye on politics, the environment, equal rights, sex, and more, mostly from a historic point of view.
I received this book as a Christmas gift in 1980, the year it was published. I still have that copy. Many of the “modern” poetry and prose entries are a bit cringey by today’s standards, but the past is what it is. Reading those often leaves me contemplating the course of history and the changes I have witnessed during my own lifetime.
I can’t guess how many great poems I have committed to memory. In waiting rooms, or in the checkout line, I recite them to myself. In this way, poetry helps me not only understand the world we live in, but live in it without going crazy. And while I love all poetry, I’ve always found that poetry in traditional forms—with meter and rhyme—is easier to remember. That’s one reason why I’ve always been drawn to formal verse. In my own poetry, I strive to uphold that tradition, while inventing new forms that spring organically from the subject at hand. I trust these books will demonstrate I’m not alone.
There was a time in our lives when we all loved poetry; this book will remind you why.
Stallings is the standard-bearer for new formalist poetry, which often looks to classical Greek myths for inspiration. I love the way she recasts familiar myths in a way that elucidates our modern condition. As with her other books, I was impressed—awed—by her ability to breathe new life into traditional forms and devise entirely new forms.
A prime example is “Three Poems for Psyche,” which veer(s) toward a contemplation of motherhood while recasting themes of domestic strife and time’s impassivity. I was floored by the first poem—essentially a palindrome, with each line of the first stanza repeated in the second—in reverse.
I love when poetry does things that prose simply cannot do, and you can rely on Stallings to do exactly that. The end words in “Alice in the Looking Glass,” for example,…
A. E. Stallings has established herself as one of the best American poets of her generation. In addition to a lively dialogue with both the contemporary and ancient culture of her adopted homeland, Greece, this new collection features poems that, in her inimitable voice, address the joys and anxieties of marriage and motherhood. This collection builds on previous accomplishments with some longer poems and sequences of greater philosophical scope, such as "On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia." Stallings possesses the rare ability to craft precise poems that pulsate with deeply felt emotion. Like the olives of the title,…
I was raised in a home where one parent was an acute alcoholic and the other parent was the child of an acute alcoholic, codependency and boundary issues flourished, and there was a touch of end-times religion to top it all off. This made me a kid who was highly tuned in to everything going on around me as a way to maintain a sense of control. Though that probably wasn’t the best thing for my emotional development, it’s turned me into a writer who strives to delve into the authentic human experience and a reader who wants that, too. The books on this list meet that bar!
As a writer, I absolutely worship the spare, unique voice that Ellis gives her main character, thirteen-year-old Logan.
Logan is intensely awkward and reluctant to tell the whole story of how he betrayed a friend, and as a reader, that kept me turning the pages. “Last week, Bruce kicked me in the balls at Scouts, and all his buddies were there laughing, and I started crying.” What an opening line for a book for any reader who has been through that no-man’s-land of thirteen.
Imagine if you had witnessed something horrific. Imagine if it had happened to your friend. And imagine if you hadn't done anything to help.
That's what it's like to be Logan, an utterly frank, slightly awkward, and extremely loveable outcast enmeshed in a mysterious psychological drama. This story allows readers to piece together the sequence of events that has changed his life and changed his perspective on what it means to be a good friend and what it means to be a good person.
This is What I Did: is a powerful read with clever touches, such as palindrome notes,…
I've been fascinated by cultures shrouded in secrets and mystery since childhood, a fascination that intensified when efforts to unravel the mystery and expose the truth were stonewalled, leading to frustrating dead-ends. I spent decades trying to uncover the truth history obscures through research that included travel to the lands of secrets, mystery, and sometimes outright lies. As a writer, I draw from experience, education, and imagination because I know it's sometimes necessary to wrap truth in fiction to protect it. The books I've selected speak to that reality.
Given to me by my paternal grandmother during a bout of insomnia, this book kept me up all night as I tried to unravel not only the plot but the characters themselves.
False starts set up for a surprise ending as the author leads readers through a setting that puts them at home in the story.
This book is an electrifying story from "New York Times" bestselling author Stuart Woods that moves from the urban chaos of Atlanta and Los Angeles to untamed island hideaways, from moments of tender passion to acts of overwhelming violence.
I’m the author of nearly thirty books for children, ranging from board books to young adult novels. This list combines two of my great loves: animals and early readers. I love animals because they are funny, amazing, and mysterious, and they have brought me so much joy throughout my life. I love early readers because they are small books about big feelings—big problems, big dramas, big adventures. The words may be simple, but there is nothing simple about the emotions in these stories. For beginning readers, these first, short chapter books are the gateway to a lifetime of literary pleasures. Below are a few of my favorites, old and new.
A boisterous dog named King is the narrator of this charming mystery series. He and his owner Kayla solve various puzzles: a missing ring, stolen treats, or in this case, a lost dog separated from his family. The books have an appealingly dog-like perspective, focused on smells, sounds, and food, with little sense of human concepts like time (e.g., King remarks that “nine or three days go by”). The straightforward mysteries have just the right complexity and drama for beginning readers.
King & Kayla are back on the case in this laugh-out-loud mystery from the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Award-winning series.
When King and Kayla meet Fred, a lost dog, they collect clues to him find his human family. Analytical Kayla notices that Fred knows basic commands but has no collar. This dog isn't a stray.
Sensitive King notices that Fred smells like smoke and hamburgers. There's a campground nearby and there were fireworks just a few days ago. Can King and Kayla put the pieces together and find Fred's family?
With simple, straightforward language and great verbal and visual humor,…
Not only have I been a comic book editor for sixteen years and obsessed with indie comics for much longer, I’m also an avid camper who co-created and co-wrote a comic book series that exalts in the unique feeling of sleeping under the stars. As such, excellent comics about outdoor adventures have a particularly tender spot in my heart.
I love the way Lisa Hanawalt draws nearly anything, but I especially love the way that Lisa draws animals, the desert, and the West. If you’re a Bojack Horseman fan, you’ve already fallen in love with her innovative cartooning style (she was a Bojack producer and its production designer). Her work here is all absurd movement, perfect timing, hilarious expressions, and, oh, yeah, a main character that’s a horseback-riding half-coyote, half-dog, full of messy humanity—a visceral, subversive Western, as delicious and satisfying as sleeping under a starry sky.
Coyote is a dreamer and a drama queen, brazen and brave, faithful yet fiercely independent. She beats her own drum and sews her own crop tops. A gifted equestrian, she s half dog, half coyote, and all power. With the help of her trusty steed, Red, there s not much that s too big for her to bite off, chew up, and spit out right into your face, if you deserve it. But when Coyote and Red find themselves on the run from a trio of vengeful bad dogs, get clobbered by arrows, and are tragically separated, our protagonist is…
