Olivia
Written and Illustrated by Ian Falconer
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
2000
31 pages
Fantasy
I chose this book because it is a
Caldecot Honor Book and because a friend of mine in high school read it as an
assignment we had senior year. I remember her speech on the book being really
cute and decided to read the book again for this assignment. This book is about
a little pig named Olivia who is rambunctious and energetic. She is good at
most everything, and like most girls has trouble deciding what to wear. She has
a little brother who likes to copy her and a mother who she wears out. I would
say Olivia is like many young girls making this a very relatable book for them.
The illustrations in this book look to
be ink and paper. They are mainly black and white with pops of red which
emphasizes Olivia’s vivacious and outgoing personality. There are a few pages
with actual paintings on them, one by Degas and one by Pollock. These paintings
represent two sides of Olivia’s personality: on one side a pretty princess
ballerina (every little girl’s dream) and on the other side a seemingly chaotic
expression of energy and motion (the reality parents see in every little
child). The depiction of mainly Olivia on almost every page gets across the
ego-centric phase that most young children go through at Olivia’s age.
I love this book! It’s strong use of
an accent color, the page of multiple pictures of Olivia in all her outfits,
and the short precise sentences so perfectly depict the sassy princess that many
young girls are. This book is appropriate for K-2nd grade students. It would
be a great model book for students in the 2nd grade to use as a
guide to write a book about themselves. They could draw their own illustrations
and choose one accent color to use throughout. It would also be a great book
for introducing art into the classroom. Teachers could use the “Pollock”
painting as a writing prompt asking students to describe what they think the
painting is about.
This book won the
Caldecot Honor award in 2001.
Learn more about Ian
Falceonr and his other books about Olivia by clicking on his name.
No comments:
Post a Comment