OTTO P. NUDD

Animals and humans learn to work together and help each other.

Otto and Lucille are newlyweds who are expecting their first child. In almost every respect, they lead the life of a conventional middle-class couple, except…they are a pair of ravens, and Lucille is busy hatching an egg. Otto is a clever but verbose and arrogant bird who reads Popular Science and spends much of his time assisting Bartleby Doyle, an elderly inventor who is building a flying machine in his workshop. Otto has a special relationship with 10-year-old Pippa Sinclair, with whom he trades treasures. When Doyle takes a nasty tumble while trying out the flying machine inside his workshop, Otto rushes to get help, setting in motion an extraordinary chain of events involving a whole neighborhood of characterful speaking animals and birds and even a few humans. In trying to rescue his human mentor, Otto is taught a few life lessons about respect and humility. Lucille tells Otto that to get what he wants, he will need to make amends to all the animals to whom he has been unkind. Readers will be drawn into the unstoppable excitement of the chase and may learn a few lessons in social behavior as well as a little science along the way. Most human characters are assumed White.

An original offering; part quirky and rambunctious animal adventure, part physics lesson, part friendly morality tale.