Exploring Otter's imagination & growth

Part III - Review of Sam Garton's I am Otter by Béatrice Dumiche

Reminder: part II explored the idea of exploring the unconscious through playing and drawing.

The imagination and personal growth of Otter

Moving along into Otter’s imagination and personal growth, the reader discovers - through several illustrations in the book – Otter relies on what had been told to her about herself before she was able to refer to some personal memories. Thus, the major twist, marks the point where her imagination meets what Keeper told her about how she was with the beginning of her consciousness of her own life; she struggles with this concept. She has to make a deduction about the stage she has reached so far and this speculation leaves her feeling alienated and insecure about who she really is.  She can only move forward thanks to the mischievousness of her playful being and the pleasure she has to transform herself. This pleases the child reader while it lightens the adults’ mood. Both are invited not to brood on what they don’t understand, but to simply seize the moment.

That’s why Otter evokes through Keeper’s words that she indeed grew up and he refers to her as she no longer is and like she never knew she was. For Otter, she reflects on Keeper talking about her when she was younger stating “He says back then I was very small. I’m still quite small, so I must have been really tiny. I wish I’d made the most of being that little."  But, Otter still defines only through Keeper, as she views him as the superior authority since he is the only person with whom she has contact.  So, Keeper remains in her mind a sort of mythical god because he knew her from a time she can’t remember. And, because he told her about her past, he has created more of a bond with her while also helping her understand her past self. Thus, he puts her in a situation where she is able to appreciate her own growth as it relates to her past – she is able grow and accept her own  normal evolution because she is able to integrate the experience of having once been different into her self-construction.

Keeper only stimulated her imagination when he told her she was very tiny - he linked her emotionally to her body and its sensations - its affectations so that she could figure out by herself what she looked like through how she is at the moment. So, the drawings do more than illustrate the text, they literally bring to life how Otter experiences her feelings as intimate sensations. The illustrations show the tremendous power of her imagination helping her approximate the transformation of her body as she begins to determine what she could have done when she was tinier. She discovers and enjoys the abilities of her very adaptable body which she is able to scale in comparison to the different household items surrounding her.

Sam Garton’s brilliant artistic talent is revealed in his ability to invoke realistic pictures by simply changing perspectives as his heroine does by growing and expressing how naturally funny it is to switch into another one’s skin and experience their life from their perspective. Garton demonstrates that trusting fancy is pleasant and liberating because it enables one to find expressions for that what exceeds reality yet still corresponds to a reality provided the readers allow it. Thanks to his heroine and the identification she generates, he can combine these two perspectives and emphasize the benefit of imagination.

When Garton draws Otter, first hidden under an oversized pirate hat and then curled up in a tea cup peeking over its brim with a telescope, drawn with a skull emblem as if it was a pirate device. Humorously, Otter had even attached a piece of paper, deeming herself “Otter Pirate”. Garton allows his readers an insight in how imagination works: it crystallizes past and present. The pirate hat, in which Otter found by chance, was the beginning of an invented improbable story where she plays the role of a character she can’t realistically be since she guesses that the hat is far too big for her. Nevertheless, she explores the idea symbolically; imagining how she would have been as a pirate which enables enables her to transform her environment - conceived by and for adults - into her own playground. Spontaneously, her fantasy lets her see common practical items not as if they were there for another purpose, but only as they will play into her imaginary plan.

Simultaneously, Garton shows that the way Otter uses the accessories in her environment is not actually the result of her own invention as it is unlikely that she would realize that the piece of paper would make a mat. Garton stresses that Keeper collaborated and Otter helped since imagination takes shape only through interactivity and connectivity between the intimate personal bond of past and future.  Originality can only be expressed metaphorically within an image that assimilates otherness and alteration in the construction of the self and its conscious development through time and space. Otter needs Keeper to grow into her personality; he gives her the opportunity to be creative while the illustrator [Garton] responds to her expectations, drawing what she would like to do if she could. He draws her a rather complex scene with the fancy pirate ship while at the same allowing the spelling mistakes to exist in the inscription of the sail because it’s how she would think it is correct. Sam Garton’s genius is that he creates an acceptance for this surrealism which sneaks into everyday-life via minute differences which only humor lets guess and appreciate.

The drawings within I am Otter, expressed in the most simple form, create an unconscious continuity to sustain the story and help children feel how liberating drawing can be in response to what is told about them and what they can’t totally understand yet. Identifying with Otter awakens their curiosity about their past and the mysterious circumstances of their birth which can only be satisfied by imagination. That is why Garton is able to emphasize the importance of the tales and myths he employs because they cast bridges to others throughout time and space. He advocates for the children’s book extending the oral tradition of using drawings as a most elementary mental support in the transmission of life’s essentials from generation to generation; symbolized by the relationship between Otter and Keeper.

Children’s literature has evolved into a more sophisticated artistic genre transposing the way to self-consciousness into an open exchange which lets the readers take part in the characters’ interaction. This participation opens their minds as it gives them the opportunity to compare with others and to utter their own feelings constructively in a discussion facilitated by the book. The adult, reading to a child, becomes the mediator who is there to moderate the child’s reactions. Similarly the artist and author, tells the story and hopes that he has awoken a love – within the readers – of reading and drawing; encouraging them that these are stimulating activities that make life happier and richer.

To be continued....