Olivia is a very self-centered piggy little girl who would be hard to like except for one thing - she is a pig. Olivia Helps With Christmas is the fifth book about Olivia and her loving family that Ian Falconer has written and illustrated. While Olivia, her little brother, Ian, and the baby are waiting for Santa, Olivia decides to help with Christmas. The results are both disastrous and funny. Nothing stops Olivia. She makes one mess after another as she cheerfully creates havoc while "helping" her bemused parents.
What makes Olivia Helps With Christmas, as well as the other Olivia books, exceptional is the artwork by Ian Falconer. He makes great use of white space, a limited color palette, and surprising touches of mixed media. Except for several spectacular color photographs, the illustrations in Olivia Helps With Christmas, created with charcoal and goache on paper, are done mainly in black, gray and white, with accents of red and green. The extra foldout pages showing the piglets rushing from the breakfast table to open their presents are a riot, as is Olivia's dream at the end of a busy Christmas. Children three to six years old particularly enjoy Olivia, although I also know of many older kids and adults who also get a kick out of Olivia. Compare prices. (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2007. ISBN: 9781416907862)
