Olivia Forms a Band(奥利薇乐队)

Book Description
Everyone's favorite Caldecott Honor-winning porcine diva is back and with fanfare! There are going to be fireworks tonight, and Olivia can hardly wait to hear the band. But when she finds out that there isn't going to be a band, she can't understand why not. How can there be fireworks without a band?! And so Olivia sets to putting a band together herself...all by herself. Using pots, pans, her brother's toys, and even her father's suspenders, Olivia forms a band spectacular enough to startle any audience. Lavishly brought to life in Ian Falconer's signature style, and introducing an eye-catching shade of blue, here is Olivia doing what Olivia does best -- making noise.

Amazon.com
There were 60 images selected for Olivia Forms a Band out of over 70 pieces of art submitted by Olivia creator Ian Falconer. Sixty images may sound like a lot, but many pages are filled with multiple depictions of our porcine heroine. For instance, when you look at the page where Olivia is removing Daddy's suspenders, this page has nine separate drawings. On the other hand, the glorious fireworks scenes are all composed of one piece of art per page.

For this particular image of Olivia provided exclusively for Amazon.com customers, Falconer didn't feel like this artwork captured Olivia's true character. However, many people in-house at Simon & Schuster loved the picture and thought it was typical of a 5-year-old playing with her mother's lipstick. While there's a lot to love in this picture, Ian Falconer after all is the man behind Olivia. He knows better than anyone what makes something up to "Olivia standards." Sometimes that is as simple as being able to know which image works best for a particular moment in the book. In this instance Falconer felt the drawings that were used in the final book served the scene better, and with that this one was left on the cutting room floor.

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. PreSchool-Grade 3–The latest escapades of a precocious piglet and the mother who attempts to both nurture and civilize her opens on the morning of a fireworks display. The charcoal-and-gouache scenes with their signature red highlights on uncluttered white backgrounds depict Olivia's family, but readers are soon treated to a series of surprises that include the introduction of a new color (turquoise), collage elements, a fold-out, and full bleeds. When the protagonist declares that a band is essential for the evening's entertainment and that, lacking one, she'll fill in, her mother's thought bubble fills with a photograph of a leaping rock band; Olivia's depicts the marching variety. The fold-out starts with the heroine as the sole majorette and reveals a full-size band of Olivias, with the score of a Sousa-like march printed boldly above. Falconer builds to a crescendo of two and a half pages that portray a picnic at sunset followed by a dazzling display of feathery fireworks. These compositions are predominantly charcoal; the family members, backs to readers, are outlined in the reflected yellow glow of an ascending rocket. The palette returns to the original color scheme in the denouement, a bedtime moment to which all ages will relate. With perfectly nuanced dialogue and a mixture of comical and artful scenes, Falconer explores the logic, invention, and humor emanating from a talented youngster, serious about the mission of the moment.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　–Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 1. The irrepressible Olivia the pig returns for a fourth adventure. Shocked to discover there will be no band at that evening's fireworks display, Olivia decides to form a band herself--and if you think one piglet can't be a whole band, you obviously don't know this porcine powerhouse. Unfortunately, Falconer seems as easily distracted as his heroine this time around, and his extremely episodic story is little more than a series of setups for visual jokes. Though what result is essentially creative coasting, most children won't care, as Olivia remains an indisputably great character, and Falconer a master of antic line and situation. Devotees of previous books will also be pleased to see that to his usual palette of charcoals and reds Falconer has added a particularly winning shade of blue, and that he has incorporated photographs into many of his droll drawings. If only he had included more story . . .
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Michael Cart

Book Dimension
length: (cm)29.1 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)21.9

Book Description
Everyone's favorite Caldecott Honor-winning porcine diva is back and with fanfare! There are going to be fireworks tonight, and Olivia can hardly wait to hear the band. But when she finds out that there isn't going to be a band, she can't understand why not. How can there be fireworks without a band?! And so Olivia sets to putting a band together herself...all by herself. Using pots, pans, her brother's toys, and even her father's suspenders, Olivia forms a band spectacular enough to startle any audience. Lavishly brought to life in Ian Falconer's signature style, and introducing an eye-catching shade of blue, here is Olivia doing what Olivia does best -- making noise.

Amazon.com
There were 60 images selected for Olivia Forms a Band out of over 70 pieces of art submitted by Olivia creator Ian Falconer. Sixty images may sound like a lot, but many pages are filled with multiple depictions of our porcine heroine. For instance, when you look at the page where Olivia is removing Daddy's suspenders, this page has nine separate drawings. On the other hand, the glorious fireworks scenes are all composed of one piece of art per page.

For this particular image of Olivia provided exclusively for Amazon.com customers, Falconer didn't feel like this artwork captured Olivia's true character. However, many people in-house at Simon & Schuster loved the picture and thought it was typical of a 5-year-old playing with her mother's lipstick. While there's a lot to love in this picture, Ian Falconer after all is the man behind Olivia. He knows better than anyone what makes something up to "Olivia standards." Sometimes that is as simple as being able to know which image works best for a particular moment in the book. In this instance Falconer felt the drawings that were used in the final book served the scene better, and with that this one was left on the cutting room floor.

From School Library Journal
Starred Review. PreSchool-Grade 3–The latest escapades of a precocious piglet and the mother who attempts to both nurture and civilize her opens on the morning of a fireworks display. The charcoal-and-gouache scenes with their signature red highlights on uncluttered white backgrounds depict Olivia's family, but readers are soon treated to a series of surprises that include the introduction of a new color (turquoise), collage elements, a fold-out, and full bleeds. When the protagonist declares that a band is essential for the evening's entertainment and that, lacking one, she'll fill in, her mother's thought bubble fills with a photograph of a leaping rock band; Olivia's depicts the marching variety. The fold-out starts with the heroine as the sole majorette and reveals a full-size band of Olivias, with the score of a Sousa-like march printed boldly above. Falconer builds to a crescendo of two and a half pages that portray a picnic at sunset followed by a dazzling display of feathery fireworks. These compositions are predominantly charcoal; the family members, backs to readers, are outlined in the reflected yellow glow of an ascending rocket. The palette returns to the original color scheme in the denouement, a bedtime moment to which all ages will relate. With perfectly nuanced dialogue and a mixture of comical and artful scenes, Falconer explores the logic, invention, and humor emanating from a talented youngster, serious about the mission of the moment.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　–Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

From Booklist
PreS-Gr. 1. The irrepressible Olivia the pig returns for a fourth adventure. Shocked to discover there will be no band at that evening's fireworks display, Olivia decides to form a band herself--and if you think one piglet can't be a whole band, you obviously don't know this porcine powerhouse. Unfortunately, Falconer seems as easily distracted as his heroine this time around, and his extremely episodic story is little more than a series of setups for visual jokes. Though what result is essentially creative coasting, most children won't care, as Olivia remains an indisputably great character, and Falconer a master of antic line and situation. Devotees of previous books will also be pleased to see that to his usual palette of charcoals and reds Falconer has added a particularly winning shade of blue, and that he has incorporated photographs into many of his droll drawings. If only he had included more story . . .
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Michael Cart

Book Dimension
length: (cm)29.1 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)21.9

Ian Falconer's original intention for Olivia was as a little Christmas present for his niece of the same name. The real Olivia is an extremely headstrong, imaginative child who, even at the age of three, could argue through any "inconvenience" to achieve her goal. At any rate, the drawings and the character became better and better. A couple of years later, Simon and Schuster caught onto Falconer's work and Olivia captured their hearts too.