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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
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Summary
Summary
The bestselling Otis the tractor series created by Loren Long, the illustrator of Matt de la Pena's Love and Watty Piper's classic The Little Engine that Could !
Otis and his farm friends love to play hide-and-seek. Otis especially loves to be "It," finding his friends as they hide. Yet when the newest addition to the farm-a bounding puppy who can't sit still and has a habit of licking faces-tries to hide, he finds his attention wandering and is soon lost in the forest. Night falls and Otis, knowing his new friend is afraid of the dark, sets out to find him. There's just one problem- Otis is also afraid of the dark. His friend is alone and in need, though, so Otis takes a deep breath, counts to ten, and sets off on a different game of hide-and-seek.
From the critically-acclaimed illustrator of The Little Engine that Could , Of Thee I Sing , and Otis .
Author Notes
Loren Long received a BA in graphic design/art studio from the University of Kentucky and did graduate-level studies at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. He worked as an illustrator for a greeting card company in Cincinnati before beginning his career as a freelance illustrator.
His first picture book, Angela Johnson's I Dream of Trains, won the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award for picture book illustration. He has illustrated numerous other works including The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, Mr. Peabody's Apples by Madonna, Toy Boat by Randall DeSeve which won the 2008 Great Lakes Book Award for Children's Picture Book, Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt, and the chapter book series Sluggers that he created with Phil Bildner. His version of Walt Whitman's When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer was a Golden Kite Honor Book. He has written and illustrated several books including Drummer Boy and the Otis series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Otis the tractor is back for a third adventure. Familiar animals from the previous books, including Otis's friends the calf and the bull, play hide-and-go-seek after chores each day. The new puppy joins the fun, but gets lost during a game one evening. After the farmer ends the search for the day, Otis's concern is reflected in the illustrations and the narration as the tractor worries about the puppy, who is just as afraid of the dark as he is. Set against a backdrop of stars and a shadowy forest populated with the silhouettes of animals lurking in the woods, Otis counts through his fear before turning on his headlight and motoring around the woods seeking his new friend. As his familiar cadence proceeds, Otis gains more confidence. When he finds the puppy, those scary shapes become a crowd of familiar onlookers-deer, rabbits and raccoons-cheering on the puppy and the tractor to a successful conclusion. Chris Sorenson's narration maintains the warm tone of the story. Page-turn signals are optional. Listeners may want to linger over Long's illustrations and are likely to enjoy the story multiple times.-Janet Thompson, Chicago Public Library, West Belmont Branch, IL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Otis, the doe-eyed tractor who befriended a lonesome calf and squared off against a tornado in his first two books, now takes an adorable puppy under his muffler. New to the farm, the long-eared pup is petrified to sleep alone in the dark: "With a chuff, Otis invited him into the barn, where the puppy curled up and fell fast asleep. From that night on, the puppy would slink from his doghouse into the barn with Otis, where he felt safe." But when the puppy wanders away and doesn't return by nightfall, Otis's protective instincts kick into high gear and he careens into the darkness, his headlight producing only a meager glow in the vast, rural night: "He circled and crisscrossed the forest, making sure to see every possible place a puppy could hide." Long's gouache and pencil illustrations in burnished metallic tones recall rustic, Depression-era farm life. By his third adventure, this earnest tractor's courage in the darkest hours makes him as reliable as Lassie or the Little Engine That Could. Ages 3-7. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.