Otto and the Flying Twins - Softcover

Charlotte Haptie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340854766 ISBN 13: 9780340854761

Publisher: Hodder Childrens, 2003

Synopsis

Otto is our endearingly bewildered young hero whose world suddenly becomes very odd. Going with his father, Albert, to the FireBox Launderette, Albert is called to help with 'failing machinery' and is seen by Otto calming a purple dragon in the back room. When his baby sisters start to fly, his grandmother becomes a unicorn, and street waifs fly along the street at night on magic carpets pursued by the new Normal Police force, life becomes odder and scarier. Otto learns - often riotously - that his city and his family are very special indeed. Here the last remaining magical people - the Karmidee - are living as an underclass of pedlars and tinkers, known as the 'magicos'. But legend tells of a King, birthmarked with a butterfly, who will save the Karmidee from extinction. Particularly from the new Minister for Modernisation, Councillor Elfina Crink. With her Impossible List and Normal Police, she is determined to stamp out the Karmidee spirit. As repression intensifies, the Karmidee and their powers go underground, but their magic bursts out in the most unexpected places as a bid for freedom, with surprising, hilarious and extraordinary results.

About this title

About the Author

Charlotte Haptie has wanted to be a writer since she was seven, but has had a number of more sensible jobs in between. Her first literary success and only publication before Otto and the Flying Twins was the sale of an idea for a Valentine's card. She was brought up in Buckinghamshire and Merseyside, and now lives in Scotland.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-7-Carpet-flying Otto, introduced in Otto and the Flying Twins (Holiday House, 2004), returns in this second book. His home, The City of Trees, suffers from the uneasy relationship between the Normal citizens and the magical Karmidee. Here, the tension increases as unusual weather conditions threaten everyone and the Karmidee are blamed. Otto finds himself at the center of many adventures that include the disappearance of two children, a blackmail attempt, and a powerful bird charmer. All of the story's threads loop together to explain the numerous mysteries while suggesting another installment in the series. A successful stand-alone book as well a sequel, Otto is a strong fantasy with good pacing, attention to detail, and memorable characters. Similar to Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember (Random, 2003) in its ominous descriptions of an increasingly hostile environment, the story draws readers into the minute concerns of every character and the larger, overarching ones of the society. This inventive and whimsical tale shares the "Harry Potter" books' obsessive love of details, delighting readers with combat knitters, heated umbrellas, jeweled armadillos, and many other things not entirely Respectable and Possible. While some of the plot elements could be more tightly woven and the book contains the occasional distracting shift in tense, it is a good choice for school and public libraries.-Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CT
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Edition details

• Publisher: Hodder Childrens
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340854766
• ISBN 13: 9780340854761
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320