Spotting Dottie (Orca Currents)

Written by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Orca Book Publishers

978-1-4598-3483-5

112 pp.

Ages 9-12

R: 2.5

April 2024 

There's Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. There's also Chessie, the Chesapeake Bay creature,  and Champ, the lake monster of Lake Champlain. But in Gail Anderson-Dargatz's latest hi-lo novel for Orca Currents, we have Dottie, a cryptid that lives in the deepest part of Dorothy Lake. Or does she?

Charlotte believes wholeheartedly in Dottie, just as her grandmother Donna always has. Ever since Donna saw the lake monster when she was 14, as Charlotte is now, she has been interested in Dottie, collecting memorabilia and photos, interviewing prospective witnesses, and patiently watching through her spotting scope and binocs. This has earned her the moniker of Dottie Donna, and though her grandmother doesn't mind, it really bothers Charlotte's mom Anna who is not a believer in the creature.  When Anna gives Charlotte a drone with a camera for her birthday, Charlotte (a.k.a. Lottie) and Grandma and Charlotte's friend Scott witness something large, with humps rolling out the water. Convinced they have footage of Dottie, Charlotte shares it with the Dorothy Lake News website. 

That posting starts everything, from media attention, local ridicule–Charlotte becomes known as Dottie Lottie–self-doubt, and an undesirable draw of tourists and cryptid hunters to the lake. All Charlotte had wanted was to get her mother to believe Grandma in her assertion that Dottie existed. Instead, she has brought chaos and perhaps danger to her friends and family and perhaps, worse of all, to Dottie.

 

There is a natural interest in the unknown, attempting to understand the unexplainable, to prove that which has not been proven. It's wondering about things we don't know and defending those whose beliefs may be different than our own. Charlotte is a sweet granddaughter who really just wants to help her mother and grandmother get along better. The two strong women in her life are pulling Charlotte to different perspectives and Charlotte is convinced that if she can find evidence of Lottie and prove it to her mother, then everything will be alright. Unfortunately, beliefs can be entrenched and making someone believe something other than what they've always held true is a tall order. It doesn't help when there are those who ridicule you for those beliefs. But Gail Anderson-Dargatz doesn't force Charlotte or Anna or even Donna to believe something they don't. She lets them be a family who can love and accept differences and bend as needed. Spotting Dottie may lead young readers to investigate the real story of BC's cryptid–Ogopogo in Lake Okanagan–but that mystery is one that will remain while families come together, and sometimes fall apart. And Gail Anderson-Dargatz will let us watch them and learn.

Whether Nessie or Chessie or Champ are logs, mega eels or cryptids, it doesn't matter to Dottie's story. Dottie is as real as she needs to be for all the families involved. And we're going to keep her secrets safe.