Otto: A Palindrama

by Jon Agee

Otto is having a very palindramatic day. His pet, Pip, has gone missing, and his search for the dog leads him deeper and deeper into a strange and perplexing world--full of talking owls, stacks of cats, storms and mazes, boats and trains and automobiles . . . oh my! Everything seems to be the same backward and forward, and Pip isn't sure he'll ever find his way home to Mom and Pop.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Middle Grade, Childrens, Comics, Fiction, Humor, Fantasy

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2021

About the author

I grew up in Nyack, New York, just up the street from the Hudson River. In our house, there was always an art project going on.

My early drawings were very animated: a lot of stuff zipping around, airplanes, racing cars, football players. No surprise my first published drawing was a pack of rats running along a highway (The Rat Race). I did that for the New York Times Op Ed page when I was still in high school.

I went to college at The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. I studied painting, sculpture and filmmaking, but what I loved doing most—in my spare time—was drawing cartoons and comic strips.

When I graduated, I hauled my pile of doodles into the offices of a bunch of editors, with the wild notion that somebody might publish them. When that failed, I wrote a story for kids to go with my pictures (If Snow Falls). It was two sentences long (which counts, by the way). Frances Foster, a wonderful editor at Random House, saw something in that book and signed me up.

The next book, Ellsworth, was about a dog who teaches economics at a university. When he gets home, he throws off his clothes and acts like a dog, which is fine, until some fellow teachers discover this and he loses his job. Somebody told me that Ellsworth was a story about "being yourself." I never realized it had a moral.

I moved to another publisher with Ludlow Laughs, the story of a grumpy guy who laughs in his sleep. This book was doing very poorly until the comedienne Phyliss Diller read it on PBS's Reading Rainbow. It stayed in print for over twenty years.

My fourth book, The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau, was a hit. One of the first people to see it and give it the thumb's up—literally, hot off the press—was Maurice Sendak. We bumped into each other at the printers. It was a lucky first meeting, and happily not our last.

That was all a long time ago. Since then I've written many other picture books, illustrated a few by other authors, and created a series of offbeat wordplay books, beginning with the book of palindromes, Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!

I visit schools across the country and sometimes around the globe. I live with my wife, Audrey, in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is your palindrome vocabulary list a bit limited? Maybe off the top of your head you can think of words like wow or peep and names like Bob and Hannah. If you hadn't thought of it before, Otto is now on your radar. Fear not! This new release from Jon Agee (I Want a Dog and Lion Lessons) is the book for you. It is chock full of 200 total palindromes. Every word, phrase and string of numbers is a palindrome. There are some original to Jon Agee like: "No one made killer apparel like Dame Noon." Others are borrowed(with permission) like "I died here, Heidi" and "Naw I ate Taiwan"(spoken by a shark). Do you love word play? Check out this new graphic novel. It will tickle your funny bone and give you some new ammunition for those Palindrome contests.

Thank you to Dial Books and Edelweiss+ for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

[Blaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
…
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm

I read Otto to complete the “A book with a palindromic title” task in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. The book is self-described as “the world’s first palindromic graphic novel!—a thrilling story told entirely in words or phrases that read exactly the same backward and forward.”

Otto is a book for young readers, but even judged on that curve I would not describe the story as thrilling. It’s mostly a child daydreaming a series of strange encounters that provide excuses for palindromes: Otto sees a man-sized rat wearing sunglasses and carrying a boogie board, then turns and asks his dad “was it a rat I saw”? The book is more of a gimmick than a true story, with both the art and the story a far cry from Dr. Seuss or any of a number of other children’s books. Unless you know a child who’s really into word play—and some of the palindromes are impressive, if you’re into that sort of thing—I would say Otto is a borrow from the library and read once kind of book, not one to be bought and read over and over again.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic idea! The first 'palindrama' GN! This is a fun way to introduce young children to palindromes- sir, I'm Iris - Grubsburg - Regal Lager - and so many more! Cleaver and very fun - a great way to introduce children to this interesting linguistic concept. I just have one question: shouldn't the word used to describe a paindrome be...a palindrome? Let me ask taco cat!

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the sheer audacity of the stunt Jon Agee is pulling here: a graphic novel written entirely in palindromes. I love the wordplay enough to offset the fact that 90% of the book is basically a dream sequence in order to cover the absurdity of what must happen to have many of the lines make any sort of sense.

I do wonder about how the main character enters this state over a bowl of soup. Is he hypnotized by the ripples? Is he having hallucinations triggered by a momentary seizure in his brain? Has mom accidentally served him her intended bowl of soup that has been spiked with an mega dose of "mother's little helper?" Will we get an answer? "No sir — away! A papaya war is on," responds the book.

[Skye Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is actually really fun to read!
It’s a palindrama, which means the sentence has the same spelling both ways!
The whole time I read it, I would read it backwards after!
I definitely enjoyed this one!

[Ms. B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could you tell a story using only palindromes? Jon Agee does exactly that in this graphic novel for tweens and young teens.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Featured in a grandma reads session.

Otto: A Palindrama is HILARIOUS! The entire thing is created out of palindromes and is set up as a story within a story. . . .I so want to see this in a play form! One of my sons is a high school drama teacher, putting on plays all year long, and I so want to see this on his stage. . .the sets would be absolutely hilarious, and would require a lot of dark negative space, but oh, my goodness this would be funny!

Anyway - my out loud group loved this, and everyone pitched in with the various parts. Hilarious. Find this book, grab a couple of kids. . .over 8 under 16, and read it to each other. You'll end out on the floor. I promise!

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jon Agee has written a wildly clever graphic novel for children of all ages and created a new genre (palindrama), in which every word/phrase/sentence is a palindrome, starting with the protagonist Otto. There is a semblance of a plot, which is a tenuous path to showcase many palindromes, some from Agee and some from friends acknowledged in the afterword. Otto’s adventure takes him to various places and situations, a veritable panopoly of palindromes: a museum, a bookstore, a newsstand, etc. Fun and sometimes funny too.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Jon Agee graphic novel written completely in palindromes? Yes please! A double spread of gravestone palindromes? Most definitely yes! Very clever and completely delightful.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children's graphic novel. I love wordplay, and so when I heard of this new graphic novel told entirely in palindromes I knew I had to read it. Otto is our main character, who lives with his dog Pip and his parents (Mom and Dad). Somehow during his wonton soup meal (nosh, son!), he sets off on a fantastic journey to the beach, where he helps Mr. Alarm rescue Dr. Awkward from an oncoming train, tracks cars with a lady (sad, no Hondas), hitchikes to Grubsburg, eventually goes through a magic door at the Mueseum, walks through a cemetery, gets shipwrecked, and makes his way home. The plot is absurd, but the pictures are awesome. All of the signs on trucks, billboards, gravestones, etc. are in palindrome. A fun book to read for the wordplay, might inspire readers to brainstorm their own palindromes.

[Michele Knott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just ridiculously clever.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exceptionally clever even if awkward (Dr. Awkward, that is). The art does so much of the storytelling given the limitations of the palindromes. It's a very quick book to read but the storyline still didn't hold my attention.

[Elspeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it’s safe to say you won’t have read anything like this before: a graphic novel written entirely in palindromes. If you know a thing or two about palindromes, you’ll know that the longer ones often sound absurd, and so this book goes in absurd — and profoundly delightful — directions. It’s hallucinatory, silly, and clever, a quick read that made me laugh out loud on just about every other page. It’s beautifully constructed — a ridiculous idea taken to sublime heights (one of the best things in the world).

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, but not as fun as I hoped it would be.

[DaNae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Creating a whole book with only palindromes does not make for an interesting read. Some of them were very clever.

Pop sugar #43 - A book with a palindromic title

[Rachel Merryweather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. Ti dekil I.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could give this book two different ratings - one for cleverness, and one for the actual story and success as a book. If I could, the cleverness would be a 5, and the story/success as a book, would probably be a 2. I love Jon Agee's picture books, mainly because they are so brilliantly thought out, and this one WAS brilliant in the way the story transpires. It has an almost Alice in Wonderland feel to it, with Otto falling down a rabbit hole of sorts and meeting many a strange and unusual character on his quest to find his dog. However, as many other reviewers have said, the palindromes felt forced and out of place in many instances. I am not sure a book can be called a "palindrama" when the illustrations carry the bulk of the story. The palindromes themselves appear in less than half of the frames, and those that do appear, seem out of place. Examples that come to mind are the woman who is "Toyota watching" and the kids who are stacking cats.

Additionally, I feel like the mark of a great picture book/graphic novel is one in which neither the words nor the pictures can exist on their own. However, in Otto, the words can be removed and the pictures could tell the full story just as well as the do with the palindromes included. Overall, I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did.

[Benjamin]

How? Kiddo grabbed this off the shelf, despite the fact that he bounced off it maybe last year when we first tried it.

What? First, the gimmick: every phrase in every panel is a palindrome. So there's lot of "Yo, Roy!" and a few "Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog."

Second, the story: Otto has a daydream when he looks into a bowl of soup, where his dog goes missing and he wanders around a strange landscape looking for him, until they are all reunited as Otto comes out of his daydream.

Yeah, so? Some of the palindrome work here is funny to me, others of it not so much. But I am massively underwhelmed by the story as a thing to hang these palindromes on. After all, if you're in a dream world, then any nonsense you say can make sense.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jon Agee's books are a nerdy pleasure to a palindrome enthusiast. It's amusing to see him create story worlds where every character's name, every line of dialog, and every written phrase in the background is a palindrome. If you're a fan of the art, it's fun. If you don't get much out of palindromes, then...the stories just don't work any other way, and this is just more perplexing than anything.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ever-clever Jon Agee has constructed a complex, riveting graphic novel for mid-elementary children with every scrap of dialogue and all the background text exclusively in palindromes. And it works! And some of the signs, book titles, and art labels are laugh-out-loud creative. A funny, don't-miss novelty.

[Corinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick children’s book read. It’s clever, but also nonsensical with the focus of course being on how many palindromes can fit it this book. I think it could be used as a mentor text for students for like a 1 day fun lesson.

[Sara Hodorowski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Work requested review. Our graphic novel section isn’t large enough but we have no room for more shelves. Hard weed this fall, and we are trying to touch all titles. This has secondary educational benefits but the pictures aren’t all that vibrant and the story is completely lacking. I’m gonna say it can go…

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive feat of surreal wordplay. I highly enjoyed the imaginatively bizarre story.

[sophie spindler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well thought out. Zero plot but that’s ok and I read it in 3 minutes

[Tori]

This was so fun! I can see so many middle schoolers loving it! Also a teacher could totally use this to make a really fun assignment!

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a graphic novel whose story is told in over 200 palindromes! It is fun and whimsical, and the best part was enjoying the word play.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a lot of fun! quick read, a fanciful, dream type story, but a nice showcase for some clever palindromes.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am just so impressed that Jon Agee was able to mash 200 palindromes (including some that are super weird lol) into anything that resembles a story! A work of art!

[Elizabeth Ricks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of graphic novels, but this one is interesting. I think it would have been fun to write--wordplay is always exciting.

[RG]

Absurd and brilliant!