Sam Garton's Blog, page 3

Unacceptable Travel Arrangements

The other day we had some fantastic news! Otter Keeper is going over to America to launch our new book! He’s going to do a book signing at a very important bookshop in New York, and then he’s traveling around schools in 5 different cities, telling kids all about me.

There is only one huge problem with this great news, which Teddy and I only discovered after we had packed all our important things for the trip. The problem: Otter Keeper says we can’t come!

Yes, you did hear correctly. Me and Teddy are to ‘stay and look after the house’. This is extremely silly for many obvious reasons. Firstly, it is quite likely that, left to his own devices, Teddy will make a huge mess around the house. And secondly, it’s just really, REALLY unfair! I don’t believe Otter Keeper when he says that looking after the house is an important job — it’s not and he knows it!

Teddy and I have tried hiding Otter Keeper’s slippers, making protest signs, and even going to America before him (this didn’t work, but we did stand by the front door and look very serious). It appears nothing will work. We are considering our options, but have to be careful. Otter Keeper did mention a ‘babysitter’, and I don’t want him to do anything silly.

If you did want to see Otter Keeper (I can’t see why anyone would want to meet him, because he’s so mean) he will be at Books Of Wonder in NYC at 2PM on Sunday, April 27th. If you do go, please feel free to send me pictures of you throwing things at him and telling him off for not bringing me.

Finally, if I can’t get him to change his mind, I wanted to let everyone know that Teddy and I will be having a huge party at our house. We’re still working out the details, but basically we’d like everyone to come round, make a mess, and spill juice on the carpet. I’m also going do lots of crayon practice so I can sign books myself. Please contact me or Teddy if you are interested.

Otter Book Trailer!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry I’ve been away so much recently. This has been entirely Otter Keeper’s fault because he’s been so busy working on my book! Don’t worry, he’s not getting away with it (Teddy and I took both his slippers hostage yesterday)

However, today I’ve decided to return one slipper on account of the fact that he’s made me this little video! It’s fantastic, even though Giraffe tried his best to ruin everything.

It’s now only a little over a month until my book comes out! This is obviously the most exciting thing ever! I’m so excited I might even give Otter Keeper his other slipper back. I’m a bit bored playing with it now anyway.

Otter Book Front Cover Reveal

 

Look, here it is! Our I Am Otter book cover! I love it for SO many reasons. It’s obviously been very well designed. (I know this because I am right in the middle of it!) It’s also yellow, and although yellow isn’t my favourite crayon, it’s a brilliant colour for a book. As soon as Otter Keeper showed me, I insisted (after lots of jumping on the sofa, of course) that we all rate it out of 10. And guess what? We all gave the new Otter book cover 10/10—even Teddy, and he’s not very good at rating things!

I hope you like my book cover as much as I do! Teddy and I are going to spend the day looking at it and asking Otter Keeper lots and lots of questions. He gave me a funny look when I told him this… I think it was relief, as he was probably worried he wouldn’t be able to come up with something fun to do for the day!

Oh! And, after seeing the cover, the day got even better when we remembered it was time to choose winners for our competition! This went really, really well… apart from one thing: We were sad that we couldn’t pick more winners. We had over 700 entries and lots of people wrote some very kind things to us. It seems really unfair that we can’t send everyone a book, but congratulations to the three people who DID win! They are: Teresa Nguyen, Gina Carbone, and Delilah Dawson!

Thank you SO much to everyone who entered! And don’t worry, Teddy and I have decided that next we’re going to invent a competition where everyone wins! Otter Keeper says if everyone wins, then it’s not a competition… but he’s just being difficult (he must be over-excited about the book cover). We don’t need to listen to him.

Best Competition EVER!

The other day, Teddy and I asked Otter Keeper how many days were left before our book comes out (we usually ask this question at least 4 or 5 times each day), and he said he had some good news! It turns out he’s finally finished the last bit, which is the front cover. Although the book still won’t be out until next year, he says we are allowed to show everyone the cover next Tuesday, October 8!


But the best news of all is that he says we can celebrate by holding a competition! Otter Keeper may be a slow colourer, but I have to admit he has some very fun ideas. He says the competition will be a quiz, and even better, he let ME choose the questions! I’ve decided there will be 3 winners, and for prizes, each winner will get a copy of our book (signed by me!). I thought about also offering a weekend holiday with Teddy as a prize…but I realised I’d miss him too much.


Otter Keeper has put me in charge of the competition, so we’ve set up our Important Competition Headquarters in the hallway. If you want to enter, just fill in the questions below! (Only Giraffe and Pig have entered so far). You can enter the competition until next Tuesday morning, when we’ll announce the 3 winners AND show everyone the cover!

Good luck! (I can tell you now that Giraffe hasn’t won. He got a question wrong, even though I helped him.)

 

Fill out my online form.

Fill out my Wufoo form!

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The Garden Centre

At the weekend me and Teddy got some great news: Otter Keeper was taking us on a special trip to The Garden Centre!

If you own a garden then The Garden Centre is very important. The bigger your garden the more you should visit The Garden Centre, and the more of your pocket money you should probably spend on plants (but if you have no garden at all, you shouldn’t come because you might get bored). Me and Teddy think buying plants is a great thing to do! But for us, by far the most important activity at The Garden Centre is riding in the specially designed trolley.

Now, If you think riding in a supermarket trolley is fun (which everyone does), then you MUST try out a garden centre trolley, they are a superior model in every way. The unique design can cover larger distances, go faster and have space for not only plants but also a driver AND their best friend/co-pilot! To top it all, they’re very easy to control which conveniently leaves the pilot free to give advice on which flowers are the prettiest and should be purchased.

The only annoying thing about our trip was that after a lot of free advice was given to Otter Keeper to help him buy the best plants, he then refused to buy me and Teddy sweets at the checkout! He said we had to get home for tea and refused to see how ungrateful he was being! At this point we had to get out of the trolley and leave that behind too, which really didn’t help.

 

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Best Sledge EVER!

Me and Teddy decided today would be a good day to build the best sledge ever, so that is what we did. The plan got off to a bad start, Otter Keeper said we should build something else because “There won’t be any snow Otter as it’s too warm”. I thought about what he had said very hard, and when I’d finished thinking, I went to make the sledge.

Building was fairly straightforward as me and Teddy are expert designers and we work really well with cardboard. Soon the sledge was finished and we were very happy because it really was a very good sledge, we cleverly added Christmas decorations (which will help the sledge go faster) and a sofa pillow (to make long journeys more comfortable). The final step was to find some snow. We split up and looked everywhere, but annoyingly the only available snow was in the freezer in the kitchen. This was no good, our sledge is a professional sledge so wasn’t designed to be used in the freezer.

We went back to see Otter Keeper and find out if he was still giving silly and unhelpful answers about snow. Sadly he was and this was annoying. Otter Keeper told us that there really wouldn’t be any snow for a long time, so Teddy told Otter Keeper he was ruining Christmas! Luckily Otter Keeper didn’t hear, which was good news.

So at this point there is only one thing to do, and that is sit in the sledge and wait for the snow to come. This isn’t too bad because both me and Teddy really like being in the sledge, the only slight problem is that we don’t have any on-board entertainment  (Teddy was in charge of that part of the design) so we are getting a little bit bored.

Me and Teddy have discussed the situation and decided that if the snow doesn’t come before bedtime we will launch the sled on the stairs. Otter Keeper has a ban on sliding down the stairs on things, Teddy said he thinks this ban doesn’t count at Christmas and I think he’s probably right but I’m not 100% sure. We have to be a bit careful around Otter Keeper right now, someone left the Freezer door open earlier today and he is a little bit angry.

 

We want to wish everyone the best Christmas EVER! also we are very sorry we haven’t been around much recently, this is all Otter Keeper’s fault as he has been busy colouring in our book. He deserves no sympathy as he’s refused any help from me and Teddy despite our obvious colouring experience (Teddy is particularly offended as he has been trying especially hard recently to stay within the lines and this has obviously gone unnoticed). Merry Christmas and Thank you for all the lovely messages and support. Lots of Love – Otter + Teddy + Otter Keeper XXX

 

 

 

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The Best News EVER!

 

Out of all the ‘Best Days Ever’ that we’ve had, today is the best one yet! – even Otter Keeper agrees! This is because we have just signed a deal with some very important people that make books (HarperCollins) and this means we will soon have a real book! (This also means me and Teddy will be famous).

When we first got the news I was a bit confused, so Otter Keeper sat down and explained everything to me. I didn’t understand most of it but Otter Keeper was so happy I didn’t mind. He then said we mustn’t let the fame go to our heads and become big headed, which was also a bit of a strange thing to say. However, this is apparently an unfortunate thing that can happen to you when you get famous.

I thought about everything for a while and decided that, as a precaution I had better measure Teddy’s head each day to make sure it isn’t getting any bigger. I don’t mind doing this, because measuring things (especially your friends’ heads) is always a fun thing to do. When I discussed this plan with Otter Keeper he found it really funny and at this point I also got a cuddle, which came at a good time because I was getting REALLY confused.

Otter Keeper says the first book will not be finished for a while yet, and this is a little sad. Otter Keeper is really good at colouring in, so why would it take this long?  I’ve asked him but he just says making a real book takes time.

The good news is, I’m going to show Otter Keeper that publishing a book should not be as confusing or take as long as he says it does. I’ve decided to publish my own Otter book. It’s going to be called ‘Otter’s Best Book Ever’ and I’m going to be publishing it myself next Wednesday using our printer. It’s a great plan and when I told Otter Keeper he laughed at me again.. and I got yet another cuddle.

So it turns out that although being famous can be really confusing, it’s actually a great thing because not only is it really easy to make other people laugh, you also get more cuddles than usual! If this is what being famous is like I may be beginning to understand why we are now expecting Teddy’s head to get bigger soon.

In fact I had better go and take a measurement of Teddy’s head now. I need to keep an eye on it as it would be very hard to go exploring under the sofa if Teddy’s head got much bigger. Otter Keeper says some famous people can get REALLY big heads.

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Roly Poly Help Sheet

The other morning at breakfast me and Teddy were busy discussing fun things to do while Otter Keeper was at work. We had decided on colouring in, looking at the new space book and doing some roly polies. But then all of a sudden Teddy looked really sad – it had just dawned on him that there was a real lack of support for roly poly technique. He had spotted that there may be people out there who were bad at roly polying, or worse still, had never even done a roly poly. Teddy had a good point. So after giving him a hug to cheer him up, we decided to make this guide.

We really hope our guide is useful. If you are not already a regular roly polyer make sure you do at least one roly poly each day (use our guide to help). Me and Teddy find the right balance is about 3-4 roly polies spread out throughout the day (but don’t do roly polies when it is very near to bed time as this can annoy Otter Keeper?).

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Why breakfast is the most important meal of the day

The best thing about cereals (if you choose this as a breakfast option) is that you get free toys! That’s right, the people who make cereals actually put toys inside and you don’t have to pay for them – they come TOTALLY FREE with the cereal! Free cereal toys are the reason that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

When me and Teddy are allowed to decide which cereals to buy in the supermarket we actually choose the ones that come with the best toy. We keep this a secret because the cereal people would probably be very upset if they knew we were only buying their cereal for the free toy.  We don’t even tell Otter Keeper any more because it seems to annoy him too. He will start to talk about old packets of cereals not being eaten and stuff like that and it can get quite boring to be honest.

Anyway every now and then a cereal toy comes along that is much better than any other cereal toy that has come before it, and unfortunately with the way cereal toys work, this can cause a huge problem. The problem comes from the fact that clearly once you know about an amazing toy (a wonderful yellow Frisbee in this case) you obviously need to play with it as soon as possible, yet the only way to get to a cereal toy… is through the cereal.

Me and Teddy tried many ways to get through cereal faster but it’s quite hard, multiple breakfast times were not allowed and giving cereal away to the postman was also frowned upon.  One morning Teddy (in sheer desperation as he REALLY wants the Frisbee) even decided to help the cause by requesting to have 8 helpings of cereal in one go! Otter Keeper put a stop to this and told me off when I was helping him pour it into his bowl – as you can imagine I did point out that this wasn’t my idea and I was only helping a friend.

Eventually we felt enough was enough and made a plan to extract the Frisbee whilst Otter Keeper was at work. Part of the plan was to put all the cereal back into the boxes afterwards so Otter Keeper wouldn’t know anything about it. He has enough to think about at the moment because the light bulb in the hallway stopped working this week so he doesn’t need any more stress.

Sadly our plan then went wrong. Firstly there was no Frisbee in any of the packets, just another ball and a bike reflector and we already have these. Secondly repackaging the cereal was harder than it looked (the plastic bags bulge out and won’t fit back in the boxes)  me and Teddy know bad design when we see it so we decided to write a letter to the cereal people to explain the problem. However writing letters is also quite hard and Teddy suggested at this point we do some sofa bouncing. This all ended up with part of the plan not getting finished (the bit where we put the cereal back in its packets)

This was unfortunate because when Otter Keeper got home he was quite cross and we had to put all the cereal into special containers to keep it fresh. This was actually quite a fun game (but we didn’t tell Otter Keeper that). I made Teddy say sorry lots and I think everything is OK now. I still haven’t got my Frisbee and this makes me a little sad. However, I’m going to write that letter to the cereal people suggesting they improve their packaging and the plan is to ask them for the yellow Frisbee in return for my advice. I think that plan will work, wish me luck.

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Otter Bath Time

Today I want to tell you about baths. The reason for this is that baths are fantastic! Not all people have baths (some have showers), so I should quickly explain what a bath is. Me and Teddy find a good way to understand baths is to think of them like a small swimming pool, or a large sink. If you need any more help you could go to your local DIY store and ask them to explain how baths work (Otter Keeper had to ask about different types of paint for the shed the other week and the man was very helpful – we liked him)

Bathtimes are not an everyday thing (like dinnertime or brushing your teeth) – but you do often have more than one a week. Sometimes if you get dirty you HAVE to have a bath (even if you’ve only just had one). Me and Teddy get dirty quite a bit… but as I point out to Otter Keeper, me and Teddy are much closer to the ground than he is… so staying clean is much more of a challenge for us.

Like most fun things, baths do have rules. Like don’t get soap in your eyes or don’t splash too much water out of the bath (bath water should stay in the bath where it belongs and not be splashed over the side – Otter Keeper is very strict on this rule)

One of the most annoying rules is bubble bath limits. Yes that’s right, Otter Keeper actually puts a limit on the amount of bubble bath allowed in any one bath and unfortunately this has a direct impact on mine and Teddy’s bubble making efforts. We used to play a particularly good game called ‘bubble factory’ where me and Teddy would produce bubbles .. but with Otter Keeper actively cutting our supply chain, this game now has its limitations.

But anyway, this isn’t as bad as it sounds, as there are so many other things to do in the bath, like play with bath toys. Bath toys are a special type of toy that you’re only really are meant to play with whilst in the bath (Otter Keeper’s mobile phone is NOT a bath toy .. but that’s another story – it was Teddy’s fault and we don’t talk about it)

Bath toys are great and help maximise bathtime fun. Me and Teddy have been trying to work out the best ratio of bath toys to have in the bath at any one time – it’s possible to have too many you see. If anyone wants to know, the facts are that for every 1 Otter in a bath there should be exactly 34.5 bath toys. You can use this as a starting point to improve your own bath space to toy ratio, we hope it helps

I had better go now. yesterday me and Teddy noticed the ‘bath butter’.. we have an important toast experiment we need to try.

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