Otis and the Tornado
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
**Read by country music superstar Trace Adkins!**
**The New York Times bestseller and companion to Otis, the official 2013 Jumpstart Read for the Record selection!**
Otis and all his farm friends are enjoying a summer's day, but the bull has no interest in playing and stays in his pen. Suddenly the day turns frightening and stormy: it's a tornado! Otis takes all of the animals to safety, but the bull is still locked in his pen! Quick as his tires will take him, Otis putt puff puttedy chuffs back to the farm to save the day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Otis, a diminutive and unusually sensitive tractor, befriended a lonesome calf in his eponymous 2009 debut. In this earnest sequel, Otis and his calf buddy join a cow, some ducks, and a horse "for a grand game of follow-the-leader," with Otis motoring along, "putt puff puttedy chuff." Despite his popularity among livestock, Otis avoids the farm's hulking, rust-red bull, which Long pictures looming across an entire spread. The hostile bull lowers his thick head and flares his nostrils, and his hooves trample daisies in a wry allusion to The Story of Ferdinand. One stormy day, Otis senses danger "deep down in his pipes" and sees a tornado dipping from a slate-gray cloud. Leading the animals to safety, he remembers the bull, still locked in his corral. Like Lassie on wheels, Otis chugs to the rescue (the famers have leapt for the root cellar, and the other animals lack the tractor's keen perception, not to mention self-sacrificing nature). Long's sepia-tinged, rolling croplands evoke Dust Bowl paintings and photos, and Otis's heroism is steeped in old-fashioned Americana, from 1930s picture books to 1960s TV dramas. Ages 3 7.
