Reading I am Otter is founded on trust in imagination

Part VIII: Review of Sam Garton's I am Otter by Béatrice Dumiche

Becoming a reader of I am Otter is an anti-conformist choice which is founded on the trust in imagination and pleasure as the fundamentals of life. The book expresses some hope in the resources of human nature. 

Otter becomes such a strong symbolic power - she represents, through the reference to the actual existing animal, the survival of uninterested playfulness and is guided by them and this faculty appears still existing in literature and especially in children’s literature which doesn’t pretend to prepare to definite social skills. I am Otter does exactly the contrary as it strengthens the affective links between those who have kept this sensibility and want it to prosper in their children’s mind to maybe create a more human society or, at least, let them feel less isolated like Keeper.  

Therefore, Sam Garton’s dedication of his book “to all who love Otter” is far more than just a set phrase; it’s a real declaration to his own character and to his audience which expresses a deep change in the relationship he intends to have with them.  Addressing his readers directly, he confesses the love he feels for his own creature while acknowledging her individuality, transgressing on purpose a literary convention by unveiling his emotional implication in her evolution. He appears protective to a point where he would like to prevent her from the encounter with people who might hurt her and trouble the interactive space he created with his book as an alternative place where he tries to restore education as a loving emulation based on plain reciprocal acceptance. It can’t work from the moment his readers don’t recognize her as personality they have to deal with and to adapt their own behavior to because, if not, their criticisms would break the dynamism of her innocent development and mislead it towards forced adaptation and hypocrisy, which could destroy her precious personality.

His love is mere thoughtfulness based on the consciousness of her unique sensibility - he wants her to avoid the experience of being harmed by those who don’t understand her and who might censor her playfulness because they have already lost their sense for nature and are so irreversibly alienated and cut off from their origins, that they will not be able to change. Yet, at the same time his dedication hints mischievously to his character’s charm he is confident in because she represents his trust in mankind and in the power of life which just needs to be stimulated by imagination. He bets on the survival instinct in any individual; he is almost sure that one can’t help but love Otter. His own example proves it - his declaration is significant for the change he initiated in himself with her creation and which makes her so precious to him. She symbolizes for him the self-healing power of imagination which generates serenity and self-love because it helps build relationships on reciprocal attraction which preserves the integrity of each one’s personality as it exists.  Garton underlines that being a book author means creating an evolving structure, allowing everyone to feel included from the moment he creates his own affinity with the characters and reacts to them instinctively.

This is indispensable indeed as life develops - fluctuating between imagination and reality in any creative process which figures symbolically how evolution works to find out the best adaptation implying failures as constructive attempts to changes. Those might not succeed in generating real transformations at the moment, they will however give the opportunity to learn about oneself in contact with others. Whatever might be the actual ending, this experience represents a personal enrichment as it gives the opportunity to better guess what is good for oneself. Thus, reading prepares for life as it helps evolve and become oneself while feeling related to others who are attracted by the same curiosity.

I am Otter has been conceived from the beginning as a bifocal book based on the tension between fiction and reality as it appears in Otter’s own reflection through her relationship with Keeper because she invents the part of his life she ignores according to her highly emotional imagination. She emphasizes Keeper’s otherness to a caricatured paramount which leads her to excessive games. Through them she learns to equalize their relationship by striking a balance between her irrational excitement and the usefulness of his sovereignty and independence. So, they appear to play a decisive role for the acquisition of her own autonomy as they allow her to guess that life develops by reciprocal stimulation on the basis of empathetic intuition and critical reflection by using attraction and distance as the possibility to get a new appreciation of oneself through the imaginary exchange of personal experiences. Thus, the readers’ implication in Otter’s evolution let them get further in the mental process of becoming adult which relates the consciousness of being loved with the recognition of otherness thanks to the faculty to represent fusional emotions by symbolic associations of images preserving the mystery of privacy whilst encouraging the intuitive power of imagination to create innovative connections.

I am Otter doesn’t only practically prepare to read, it shows that reading is an interpersonal dialogue which supports adaption and growth by developing everyone’s curiosity and tolerance through the confidence in the possibility to communicate beyond differences within everyone. It establishes the link between playing and reading as both favor the aptitudes enabling children to participate in life progressively while they grow.  So, I am Otter demonstrates that children’s books are essential for socialization and cultural transmission which begins much earlier than expected by the training of the mental structures which enable them to interpret and use symbols to develop their faculty to communicate with others by diversifying their skills. It makes obvious that reading must be initiated and books introduced as soon as possible in a child’s life so that they grow up with them as if they were toys like Otter does at Keeper’s home.