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Okee: The Story of an Otter in the House
The Story of an Otter in the House is a true, classic story of Okee the otter. This beautiful story of the adventures of Okee will make you feel like you are really there. The book is filled with humor, kindness and touching moments, proving that we can learn from the most unlikely creatures on earth.
- GenresNonfiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 5, 2022
This book should have been called “101 Ways to Almost Kill an Otter”.
What I thought would be a wholesome story of a woman, an otter, and the love they shared was actually a harrowing tale about an ignorant family who abducted an otter from Colombia and kept it prisoner in their suburban household.
The owners of this otter were woefully ignorant of an otter’s needs and constantly shocked me with their negligent treatment of a wild animal. Frankly, it’s a miracle it didn’t die in one of a hundred different ways as did literally thousands of pets they had previously. Preventable pet deaths include thousands of white mice that died in a wood stove accident (they had a colony of white mice they allowed to get out of control), two parakeets named Pierre, and a groundhog with coronary heart disease caused by obesity.
The writing itself is repetitive, with every chapter detailing the damage the otter did to their home. Recurring themes in the book include “oh no, the otter has broken something”, “we underestimated what a bored, housebound otter is capable of”, and “whoever imagined how much we would have to change our life to accommodate a wild animal?”. The family is somehow constantly surprised that the otter will escape at every opportunity and destroy any object in its reach and somehow never learns from prior mistakes in handling it. Also there’s an alarming number of incidents where children that don’t belong to them are allowed to put their hands in the otter’s mouth, or are asked to crawl into a sewage drain to fetch said escape artist otter.
This story is immensely frustrating. Otters are not pets. Wild animals belong in their natural habitats, not confined to bathtubs in New Jersey.
I know the sixties were another time but damn, I didn’t think common sense was a new invention.
What I thought would be a wholesome story of a woman, an otter, and the love they shared was actually a harrowing tale about an ignorant family who abducted an otter from Colombia and kept it prisoner in their suburban household.
The owners of this otter were woefully ignorant of an otter’s needs and constantly shocked me with their negligent treatment of a wild animal. Frankly, it’s a miracle it didn’t die in one of a hundred different ways as did literally thousands of pets they had previously. Preventable pet deaths include thousands of white mice that died in a wood stove accident (they had a colony of white mice they allowed to get out of control), two parakeets named Pierre, and a groundhog with coronary heart disease caused by obesity.
The writing itself is repetitive, with every chapter detailing the damage the otter did to their home. Recurring themes in the book include “oh no, the otter has broken something”, “we underestimated what a bored, housebound otter is capable of”, and “whoever imagined how much we would have to change our life to accommodate a wild animal?”. The family is somehow constantly surprised that the otter will escape at every opportunity and destroy any object in its reach and somehow never learns from prior mistakes in handling it. Also there’s an alarming number of incidents where children that don’t belong to them are allowed to put their hands in the otter’s mouth, or are asked to crawl into a sewage drain to fetch said escape artist otter.
This story is immensely frustrating. Otters are not pets. Wild animals belong in their natural habitats, not confined to bathtubs in New Jersey.
I know the sixties were another time but damn, I didn’t think common sense was a new invention.
February 4, 2015
Though not an 'animal lover', I have very much enjoyed reading this book many times having received it as a teenager, from one of my godmothers.
If you're even vaguely considering keeping a 'non-standard' 'pet', i.e. a wild animal, then you really MUST read this book. You will learn of the personal sacrifices you will have to make to accomodate the animal's lifestyle, and you will find yourself thinking through the physical and practical alterations you will need to make to your house. Keeping a (fancy) rat is, I surmise, considerably easier than keeping an otter.
This is an excellent book, beautifully and engagingly written, that will enable you to distinguish between desire and reality; and experience humour and heartache. The book is illustrated with a copious number of b/w photographs.
If you're even vaguely considering keeping a 'non-standard' 'pet', i.e. a wild animal, then you really MUST read this book. You will learn of the personal sacrifices you will have to make to accomodate the animal's lifestyle, and you will find yourself thinking through the physical and practical alterations you will need to make to your house. Keeping a (fancy) rat is, I surmise, considerably easier than keeping an otter.
This is an excellent book, beautifully and engagingly written, that will enable you to distinguish between desire and reality; and experience humour and heartache. The book is illustrated with a copious number of b/w photographs.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews