Omar on Board

Britta Santowski is a freelance writer in Victoria.

This is an attractively illustrated teddy bear story of how male heroics
can compensate for shortcomings and restore pride.

Omar’s last day at school begins okay when he gets a pair of
rose-coloured goggles, but quickly deteriorates when a trip to the pond
exposes his weaknesses: he doesn’t float, he sinks; when he swims, he
breaks one of Elsie’s balloons; and, when he stands on top of the
diving board, he discovers a previously untapped fear of heights. Omar
slinks off the board and sadly sits off to the side. Elsie, being the
good girl that she is, does her best to cheer up him by recounting his
strengths (he’s the “best on the pond” in the winter). Omar wakens
into action when Elsie’s balloons become untied and drift away. He
jumps up and chases the balloons up the ladder to the diving board.
There, he reaches out and as he grasps them, slips off the board, and
floats gently into the pond. In his act of gallantry, Omar becomes
Omar-the-hero, his fear of heights is seemingly gone, and his broken
pride is fully restored. The grateful Elsie, apparently incapable of
retrieving her own balloons, rewards Omar with a balloon.

But Omar never really tackles his fear of heights (never mind his even
bigger fear of failure). A fortuitous leap followed by a gentle waft
into the water hardly compares to tackling a real fear of heights. The
bottom line is that Omar wants to be a perpetual star and isn’t very
good at recognizing his own limitations.

Also disappointing is that Elsie’s role is limited to placating the
suffering Omar and providing the appropriate crisis that prompts Omar
into his heroic spurt while she fades passively into the background.
Surely a she-bear can be more than a passively engaged ego-salve whose
sole successful purpose is to bring on crisis (reminds me of another
fairy tale…).

The soft watercolour paintings are truly expressive and beautiful, and
significantly augment the plot and emotional content. Unfortunately,
both Omar and Elsie demonstrate characteristics that I want my own child
to reject. Not recommended.