Saturday, June 22, 2019

Review - Otto the Otter's Muddy Puddle

Otto the Otter's Muddy Puddle (The Rubbish Rebellion #2)
by Chez Rafter
illustrated by Daniela Frongia
Date: 2018
Publisher: Aurora House
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 40
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Otto the otter is in trouble.
His pond is a mess and a muddle
From the trash of tourists who are less than subtle.
To save his home he needs some muscle.

Can Otto rescue his friends and together clean up this muddy puddle?

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is the second book in this series. I just read the first one, and thought it had a number of issues. Unfortunately, this book simply magnifies those, making it a rather tedious read.

It's as if the author's trying to throw as many rhyming words as possible at the reader. As a result, the text doesn't flow. It almost sounds like terrible slam poetry:

A crusty shelled clam
needed a hand when her wandering clan
found holes in her dam.
She was in a jam, they were on the lam!

Like in Yapper the Unhappy Snapper, the main character also goes around saving his friends, often wielding a pair of scissors. In the previous book, the mess was plausible. In this book, it's not (unless Australians are a bunch of dirty pigs who just dump their trash wherever they feel like it). Multiple opened cans of beef stew, a table, and flip-flops in the park's pond? Really?

These books just aren't for me. Very young children might enjoy them, but I feel sorry for the parents who will have to read them aloud.

Thank you to NetGalley and Aurora House for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 1/5
Meter: 1/5
Writing: 1/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 0/5

Overall: 1 out of 5

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