Lottie Potter Wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord
| Lottie Potter Wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Sam Tyler
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| Summary: Lottie wants an Otter and in this book she may just get one. Follow her on her tongue twisting journey that will have your tongue wagging, but may leave your eyes feeling a tad disappointed. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 32 | Date: April 2016 |
| Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 9780007501335 | |
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Purchasing a new pet is a complex enough business without trying to use alliteration, so reading a book about pet purchases and tongue twisters can get tricky. The adult can end up tripping over their own words when reading out loud to their child. The kid may find this funny, but does it make for a pleasurable read?
Lottie Potter wants an Otter and do that you must go to the Otter Shop, but did you know that there are many types of Otter? Lottie must decide which of this abundance of animals is for her as choosing the wrong one could lead to all sorts of mischief.
Dr Seuss was a great believer in the power of silly prose. The type of nonsense that does not really make sense. He would go about a story as if a narrative did not really matter – just add a few images that cover what he saying. Lottie Potter Wants an Otter is trying to achieve something similar, but within the structure of a little girl buying a pet. This means that there is a lot of rhyming with the word Otter and tripping over one's words, this is ok for the confident reader, but not so much for the adult that can become a little unstuck. It's not the tricky wording that's the real issue as it's a challenge that will improve a child's linguistic skills, but not all of the tempo matches, sometimes you get a little lost on where the correct syntax should be.
I found Jeanne Willis' complex rhymes good fun as it makes the book something that you have to really concentrate when reading; it was Leonie Lord's illustrations that fell a little flat for me. The drawings are a cross between Mr Ben and the naïve style of an overenthusiastic, but skilled, 12 year old. You get a lot of imagery on the page and the colours work. However, a lot of the elements feel a little rushed. The various lists of otters are shown, but the detail is poor. Drawing tons of animals on one page can be time consuming, but compare the effort made here with something like Life is Magic by Meg McLaren and you will see what an eye for detail can bring to a book. I also found the choice of filter odd, it felt as if the book has been printed on cheap paper, but this is actually the drawings and not the page.
Willis' words may prove a tricky taskmaster, but for the most part they are well thought through and have some very amusing rhymes. Lord's illustrations just don't live up to the text. The book is still perfectly fun, but it lacks that something special to make it really stand out. If you wanted a Seussian style book, you could always just get a book by Dr Seuss. We can recommend Otter's Coat: The Real Reason Turtle Raced Rabbit: A Cherolachian Tortoise and Hare by Cordellya Smith.
For animal antics try the sublime Life is Magic by Meg McLaren or check out the master himself How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr Seuss
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You can read more book reviews or buy Lottie Potter Wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Lottie Potter Wants an Otter by Jeanne Willis and Leonie Lord at Amazon.com.
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