When an otter falls in love with a fish, it seems their relationship is doomed. After all, you're supposed to eat your food source, not love it. Indeed, that's what everyone around Otter and Myrtle says -- loudly and often. In a perfect world, the pair would be free to love each other without complications, but the world is not perfect, and they must decide if their relationship is worth such sacrifices as Otter not eating fish again and Myrtle standing up to her scared family -- or if they must go their separate ways. Just what are they willing to do for love?
I love the premise and, as an adult reader, I can see that the book does contain a number of gems. In fact, I enjoyed it very much and thought the romance was quite sweet. Unfortunately, Otter and Odder is intended for children, not adults. When taking that into consideration, the text was far longer, wordier and more complicated than necessary. The length risks losing children's interest, while the wordiness and inexplicable illustration choices make it difficult for children to comprehend what are actually simple messages about love and acceptance. While some may enjoy the artist's style, I felt the extremely juvenile illustrations did not fit the rather mature-sounding story at all. Rather than complementing the text, they pulled me out of the story on numerous occasions, and my daughter kept stopping me to ask, "What is that?" and "What are they doing?" Unfortunately, I couldn't answer her much of the time because I myself couldn't figure it out either. Perhaps it wouldn't matter so much if the story itself were simple and clear, but in a complicated tale such as this one the illustrations could have carried far more weight than they did and would have gone a long way toward helping children understand the complicated text.
EL -- OPTIONAL; Adults -- ADVISABLE. Reviewed by: Caryn
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