Riding Through Life’s Rough Spots in an Otto-matic

I’m not sure whether you’re aware of it, but Otto is love and everybody should have some.

Don’t feel guilty if you haven’t heard of Otto. I met Otto only just the other day over lunch with his mother, Kathleen Morey. I found him to be quite a remarkable young fellow.

“If something’s amiss and I’m feeling blue, a hug and a kiss always helps me through,” says Otto.

Otto won’t be seven until this spring. You must admit that speaking in rhyme is a remarkable accomplishment for anybody. Otto does it all the time.

Otto, chipmunk-cheeked, his head far too large for his body, also says things like:

“My mom keeps her tears in the tips of her ears, so they always are near when she needs them. Mom cries when she’s sad and again when she’s glad, and sometimes she even cries when she’s mad!” Otto was born in a dream. Mrs. Morey went to sleep one night and when she awoke, there was Otto! She knew exactly what he looked like, but she couldn’t make him clear to other people, not her friends, not even her husband. So about three years ago, she enrolled for a semester in Tom Shannon’s cartooning class at Coastline Community College. She had never drawn anything in her life and was pretty sure she couldn’t do it. But Otto had to be materialized somehow, and it was worth a try.

Eighteen weeks later Otto was ready to be born. The labor pains were horrendous.

“There were four months of constant labor of drawing. Each picture of Otto was drawn at least 50 times before I could get him right,” said Mrs. Morey.

Otto’s words were the easy part. Mrs. Morey would go sleep, and when she’d wake up in the middle of the night, there were Otto’s words, all in rhyme, and she’d write them down and then go back to sleep. I suppose you could call that Otto-matic writing. That’s the way all four, so far, Otto books have been written.

A long time ago, Mrs. Morey received a rejection slip for a short story she’d written while she was awake. She was crushed. So when Otto came along, she didn’t want to be crushed again. Otto was much too important to her to be hurt by rejection. So she decided to do her own publishing. The first Otto book, “Otto Shares a Hug and a Kiss,” was published in 1983 under her own imprint, kid-love unlimited, Costa Mesa. She promptly took Otto off to the American Booksellers’ Assn. convention in Dallas, Texas. Everybody thought she was crazy, she admitted, even her husband. The response was good. More than 4,000 were sold the first year. Otto has been selling well ever since. There are three more Ottos now--”Otto Shares a Giggle,” “Otto Shares a Tear” and “Otto Shares a Fright.”

The Otto books are being distributed by the largest Christian book distributor in the country, Spring Arbor. Mrs. Morey currently is working on estimates to fulfill a sales request for an initial order of 250,000 Ottos from two companies that distribute at school book fairs and through school book clubs.

Otto, she explained, is an acronym for “Out to Teach Optimism.” Otto exemplifies the potential within us to make make the best of ourselves despite external influences, and to react to situations with loving understanding.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Morey is planning the manufacture and sale of Otto dolls and working on additional Otto books.

I complimented her on her production. She shrugged it off with an elfish grin. “Oh, I sleep a lot, you know,” she said.