Utterly Otterly Day

Picture Book
Title: Utterly Otterly Day
Author: Mary Casanova
Illustrator: Ard Hoyt
Age Level: 3-6
Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary
This book follows a young otter through his very busy and adventurous day.  He thinks that he is old enough to do things on his own in a carefree, unabashed manner but he gets himself into some sticky situations such as almost getting eaten by a cougar.  He soon realizes that its always nice to have people who care about you around to help in case you need it.

Opinion
I was drawn in to read this book because otters are my favorite animal and I thought it would be a really cute book, which it was.  The language used within the text was a lot of rhyming and descriptive words which made the reader able to really connect with the story and feel like they were really on the adventure with the otter.  A lot of the descriptive words were a little advanced for the age level that the book was specified for, in my opinion.  I think that some young readers will have a really hard time reading some of the words in this book and it might become frustrating for them.  I did think the book was a very cute story though and I think that children will enjoy reading it because it is something that they will be able to engage in while they read.  I also thought that the message that was sent from reading this story was one that children will appreciate when they read it.  The story portrays the message that even when you think you are all grown up and don't need any help from anyone, including your family, it is still okay to ask for help from them because they will always be there for you.  This book will be comforting for children because it deals with these family topics that they may be dealing with themselves, such as growing up and wanting to be independent.

I would use this book in my classroom during a unit on family or even during a time when we were learing about the importance of descriptive words in writing.  I would start off by doing a mini-lesson on using descriptive detail in writing.  Then I would read this book to my class followed by having them write a story using as many descriptive words as they could to help bring a lot of character and depth to the stories they are writing.  I would then ask some students to share what they wrote to the class.

http://www.marycasanova.com/pages/books/bk_utterly.html