OTTO: The Story of a Mirror

Otto, a tall oval mirror with a palindromic name, hates his job at Topper's Hat Store. Every day he stands still while customers try on silly toques: "Face after face, pose after pose. Boring, boring, boring." In his off hours, Otto reads a travelogue about the exotic Roodle Tree, which grows only on the Isle of Koodle, and he yearns to "reflect all these wonders in person." (A sly close-up shows an encyclopedic entry, in reverse, that readers can hold up to a glass.) Back at work, Otto expresses his restlessness by creating funhouse images of clients, and he goes too far when he distorts the image of a curly-haired dandy. Fearful of being splintered, he runs for freedom on his bowed, cast-iron legs and feels "dizzy at the new sights he was reflecting." His breakaway leads him to the Isle of Koodle, where he finds not only the Roodle Tree but true love. Bahrampour, making a notable debut, doesn't give Otto human features like eyes or a mouth. Instead, Otto has a lot in common with Magritte's ciphers, including a bowler hat; the mirror's smooth face echoes but does not absorb anything in front of him, from the starry sky to another mirror, "back and forth, on and on and on, forever and ever and ever." This visually playful book makes a good companion to The Story of a Nose, in which another unlikely hero finds himself. Bahrampour exhibits the subversive cleverness of Shel Silverstein and Jon Agee in this subtle tale of a mercurial personality. Ages 4-8. (May)