Otter Out of Water

December 2, 2013
Wargin (S Is for Snowman) plays in the loopy “what if” territory of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give... series with this story of a river-dwelling otter that follows two kids home and causes chaos. Most of the book is written in second-person, and the rhyme scheme is suggestive of a campfire singalong: “Now what if that otter follows you home?/ Will you hop, will you skip?/ Will you whistle and yip?/ Will you hide in the bushes to give him the slip?/ What if that otter follows you home?” Working in loose watercolor and pencil, British illustrator Bendall-Brunello (Peep Leap) creates a mischievous, friendly-looking otter and two siblings that look nervous about their furry pursuer but warm up to him, feeding him popcorn for lunch and giving him a bath in the kitchen sink before animal control finally arrives. It’s only in the final pages that the story falters, with the narrative suddenly switching to first-person (“So what happened to us on that very next day?/ We better not say”) and ending inconclusively with a full-scale otter invasion. Ages 4–8.

March 1, 2014

PreS-Gr 1-Wargin and Bendall-Brunello team up again, this time asking their young readers, "But what if that otter/jumps out of the water?/Would you shout hip-hooray?/Would you ask him to play?/Would you clap?/Would you stomp?/Would you go for a romp?/What if that otter jumps out of the water?" The comical story continues as the mischievous creature follows two children home and begins to cause trouble. Wargin includes plenty of jaunty, interactive rhymes, making this story an excellent read-aloud. Bendall-Brunello's illustrations are colorful and droll, matching the humorous tone of the text, as does the font, which is as bold and energetic as the impish otter. Children will laugh along with its playful antics and particularly enjoy the surprising and appropriately silly ending, in which the otter's whole family arrives to cause even more hilarious mayhem.-Laura J. Giunta, Garden City Public Library, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
The age-old trope of an animal following someone home is taken to new levels in this look at an otter out of water. An otter in the water is a fascinating creature, but what if he leaves the water? What if he stays out and follows you home? Two children experience just such a thing in Wargin's imaginative verse. A ranger finally tracks the otter to the children's house, but will he stay away? Probably not--too much fun has been had. Unfortunately, the verse doesn't always scan well either rhythmically or visually; the rhyming words are set in a larger font, but some are on the right-hand pages and some on the left, and often lines are split in two to fit the page layout. The result is often confusing and may trip readers up instead of helping them along. "What if the otter / remains in your house? / Would he bounce / on the chairs? / Would he skid / down the stairs? // Would he swing / on the curtains / that hang in / neat pairs? / Do you think an otter belongs in the house?" This otter is sure to remind readers of the beloved mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but this tries too hard to rhyme, and the story gets a bit lost in the telling. Stick with Numeroff for her if-then tales, and look to Eric Pinder and Marc Brown's If All the Animals Came Inside and Judi Barrett's romps for more animals-acting-like-people humor. (Picture book. 3-7)

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