Olivia Helps with Christmas

by Ian Falconer, Ian Falconer (Illustrator)

Overview

Deck your shelves!

Everyone's favorite Caldecott Honor-winning porcine heroine and #1 Kris Kringle enthusiast is helping to make the season brighter than ever. Christmas is coming, and Olivia is incredibly busy. She has to wait for Santa, make sure Dad sets up the tree, wait for Santa, watch Mom make the Christmas dinner, wait for Santa, oversee the care with which the stockings are hung, and, of course, open her presents! Do you see how hard it is to be so helpful during the holidays? A lovingly told and lavishly illustrated Olivia Helps with Christmas is the perfect stuffing for any stocking, and the newest star atop the Olivia series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442494466
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Series:	Olivia the Pig Series
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	72,899
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	AD550L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Ian Woodward Falconer (1959–2023) was an author and illustrator of children’s books, including the beloved Olivia series, and a designer of sets and costumes for the theater. He created thirty covers for The New Yorker as well as other publications.

Ian Woodward Falconer (1959–2023) was an author and illustrator of children’s books, including the beloved Olivia series, and a designer of sets and costumes for the theater. He created thirty covers for The New Yorker as well as other publications.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

August 25, 1959

Place of Birth:

Ridgefield, Connecticut

Education:

Studied art history at New York University and painting at Parsons School of Design and Otis Art Institute

Editorial Reviews

Olivia is an energetic, very feminine porcine who, like any other anthropomorphic pig, eagerly awaits the holidays each year. This Christmas is different. Our corpulent little piglet can barely contain herself as she and her parents prepare for the big day. Olivia Helps with Christmas will escalate the excitement of any holiday countdown. More magical than any visions of sugarplums dancing.

Falconer's clever illustrations—in charcoal, gouache and photo montage—tell us one thing while his story is telling us another…Olivia charms by throwing herself into whatever she does…
—The New York Times

Julie Just

More a succession of family anecdotes-in-the-making than a plot-driven story, the holiday installment of a much-loved series finds the adroitly accessorized piglet and her family decking the halls of a house in the country on Christmas Eve. Olivia, charged with "a very special job" (Mom-speak for interrupting the "Santa watch" Olivia and her younger brothers mount by the rain-streaked picture window), proudly shows off the table she has set by herself, topped with a decorated miniature tree: "Why, that's beautiful, darling. Where did you ever find that perfect little . . . " her mother beams; open the gatefold to see the rest of the room, where a saw and a stool stand next to the family's (decapitated) " . . . tree?" as the mother falteringly completes the question. Readers will claim other episodes as their own favorites; as usual, Falconer knows how to play pictures and text off each other to maximum comic impact. Ages 3-7. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 2-Children who are familiar with this irrepressible pig will know what kind of help Olivia is likely to provide as her family prepares for the holiday. Her antics seem a little forced in this selection, but the dazzling illustrations, highlighted with green as well as Olivia's signature red, are as charming as ever; and the ending-a snowy Christmas-is quite satisfying. This is a good bet for family sharing.-Virginia Walter, University of California, Los Angeles

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

Oh, Olivia. We thought Christmas at your house would be much more fun. Despite several amusing moments in this latest offering about Olivia the precocious pig, Falconer has neglected to fully develop the narrative line of the plot or to further Olivia's development as a distinct character. She participates in some holiday preparations with her usual flair, such as chopping off the top of the Christmas tree for a table decoration, but other incidents fall flat, as when Olivia struggles and falls while trying to use her new Christmas skis. In a rather cheap joke, she feeds blueberry pie to her baby brother, causing immediate blue vomit, which will of course provoke laughter from youngsters but has nothing to do with Christmas. Several gatefold pages extend the holiday happenings without adding much humor; the final spread adds some sparkle with Olivia's grandiose dream of a scene from The Nutcracker. Falconer's charcoal and gouache illustrations are clever, as always, though it's sometimes hard to distinguish between Olivia and her brother when they alternate between red and green clothing. The overall effect has neither Christmas cheer nor the satisfying, saucy humor of previous Olivia adventures. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews