The commission — a lesson to teach

“Don’t take pleasure in other peoples’ misery — it’s one thing to tease in a playful way. It’s another to rejoice when someone spills something.”

Our casting recommendationone step away

“Since this touches a moment many children recognize in themselves, we gave the mischief to a lovable otter stand-in — so a child can discover the lesson through laughter and empathy rather than feeling pointed at.”

The storyline we picked (of three pitched)

A splashy river-bend tale that turns the sound of teasing right back on itself. Ripple, an otter pup with the loudest laugh in the shallows, learns that his favorite echoing canyon returns whatever he sends into it — literally. When his own belly-flop leaves him waiting for the mockery to bounce back doubled, he discovers he can choose what fills the silence instead, and the whole river bend learns to cheer wobbles as warmly as perfect dives. A gently physical, giggle-out-loud story with a built-in mechanism (the echo) that makes the shift feel like magic, not a lecture.

On the finished book

12 illustrated pages · Felt Diorama · narrated by The Steady Storyteller · independently reviewed before publishing