Odder

Odder (2022) is a middle-grade novel in verse written by popular children’s author Katherine Applegate. Many of Applegate’s works explore the relationship between humans and nature, often via nonhuman perspectives. She’s most well-known for her sci-fi middle-grade series Animorphs (co-written with her husband, Michael Grant). Her acclaimed novel The One and Only Ivan (2012) follows a gorilla named Ivan as he wrestles with questions about captivity and freedom; the novel was inspired by the real story of a gorilla trapped in a mall and won the 2013 Newbery Medal.

Similarly, Odder is based on true events. Drawing inspiration from the stories of rescued otters in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sea otter conservation program, the novel explores healing in the face of nature’s hardships and the importance of human-animal relationships in conservation efforts. Applegate tells the story through a series of free-verse poems, most from an animal perspective.

No one can move like Odder. Her grace in the water sets her apart from other otters, as do her curiosity and fearlessness. When Odder is separated from her mother as a pup, aquarists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (known as “Highwater” to the otters) raise her, eventually returning her to the wild. Later, when Odder is almost fatally injured in a shark attack, the humans who raised her rescue her and return her to Highwater permanently. As Odder recovers from her injuries, she must reckon with her new reality and the fact that she’ll never be able to live in the wild again. With the support of both humans and other otters, she finds new courage and healing by sharing her love of play with a surrogate otter pup.

This guide refers to the 2022 Feiwel and Friends first hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source material depicts a scene of realistic animal violence.

Plot Summary

A third-person omniscient narrator prefaces the story’s opening by explaining sharks’ eating habits: They don’t usually prey on sea otters, but sometimes they make mistakes.

As the story begins, an adolescent shark roams the waters, his focus sharpened by hunger. Near where the shark is roaming, Odder the sea otter floats on her back in Monterey Bay. Although she was taught to fear sharks, she has no reason to suspect that danger is lurking close by.

Odder and her closest friend, Kairi, play beneath the waves before searching for food. For Odder, the underwater world is a haven, a place where she can practice her best flips, dives, and twirls. Known for her adventurous spirit, Odder is an expert at play and has even earned the moniker “the queen of play.” Odder tempts Kairi to venture further into Monterey Bay with her, despite knowing that doing so will leave them vulnerable to predators. The roaming adolescent shark attacks both otters when they enter the bay, wounding Kairi. Odder turns back to help her friend and sustains a nearly fatal injury. Overcome with pain, Odder makes her way to the beach, where aquarists find her and take her to “Highwater,” the otters’ name for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which houses a sea otter rescue program.

The aquarists treat Odder’s injuries. As she recovers from surgery, Odder recalls scenes from her infancy. After she was separated from her mother as a pup during a violent storm, Highwater aquarists picked her up and raised her at the aquarium. Although, at first, she was confused and afraid of these strange new animals (humans), Odder gradually developed a sense of trust and security toward them. However, she still wondered where her mother had gone. The humans taught her all the necessary survival skills she’d need as an otter before re-releasing her into the ocean. Since then, Odder has thought of the humans as her friends and has occasionally strayed too close to human kayakers in the bay.

Back in the present day, Odder is beset by guilt and regret for the events of the shark attack. She feels that she has doomed herself to a life in captivity and worries that her actions caused Kairi’s death. However, Odder soon learns that Kairi survived—in fact, she’s at Highwater too. The humans brought her in to treat her for an illness, and Kairi delivered a stillborn pup not long after. They’ve given Kairi a name—Twyla—a sign that, like Odder, Kairi won’t be leaving the aquarium (since the humans assign numbers to those they plan to re-release into the ocean).

Odder learns that the humans have given her a name, too: Jazz. Still grappling with guilt and remorse, Odder renounces her formerly playful ways and accepts her new life as Jazz. She feels grateful that at least the humans have given her a safe life at Highwater, away from the dangers of ocean life.

The humans take Odder to the pool she learned to swim in as a pup, where she’s ecstatic to reunite with Kairi. She’s shocked to find, however, that Kairi isn’t alone: She’s holding a pup to her chest. Kairi explains that after her pup died, the humans brought her this one, and she’s its surrogate mother now. Odder is mystified at how Kairi instinctively knows what to do; at the same time, it triggers old feelings of abandonment in Odder, and she wonders once again what became of her mother.

When the humans bring Odder a pup of her own, she’s horrified. The pup hides from her, and Odder ignores it for days, feeling that she’s unable to care for it the way that Kairi does her pup. Kairi helps Odder understand that she must teach it to be an otter, the same way she was taught by the humans; Kairi reminds Odder that she can at least give the pup the gift of knowing how to play. Moved by these reflections, Odder remembers her purpose as an otter: to play. She takes the pup and soothes her frantic cries, promising to teach her all she needs to know to thrive in the wild.

In the final poem, the aquarists release Odder’s surrogate pup into the ocean. Feeling proud and hopeful, Odder is confident that she taught the pup everything she needs to know to survive: what to fear, how to swim, how to eat, and, most importantly, how to play.