Prose
The series incorporates a lot of wordplay; palindromes like "racecar" and "Otto Pillip" - a double palindrome - regularly feature along with anagrams and backward words. Oxymorons and onomatopoeia are introduced later in the series. Each word is highlighted and its classification is given at the side of the page. Perlman comments that it is a "great way to have something a little challenging and a little educational in the stories but still make them fun". The use of anagrams and palindromes occurs mainly when characters are speaking, and occasionally will appear in descriptive text, but not usually in the narration. They are often used to create confusion in Otto's enemies. Ordinarily the wordplay is used for comedic purposes.
Perlman believes children derive a sense of achievement from completing a chapter but many are frustrated by long chapters, so purposefully writes in small chapters commenting that she 'did that on purpose to make the process of reading a less serious endeavor, especially for reluctant readers who find 12-page chapters overwhelming.'
Read more about this topic: Otto Undercover
Famous quotes containing the word prose:
““There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on,
Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows,
Is some of it pr—No, ‘t is not even prose;
I’m speaking of metres;”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement ... says heaven and earth in one word ... speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.”
—Christopher Fry (b. 1907)
“Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)