Product Description

Funny, true and ingenious, Olivia's legions of fans will not be disappointed with this new story of the funky little pig and her fierce attachment to her favourite toy. Olivia has one toy that she loves more than anything - a stuffed animal that she feeds and dresses and takes everywhere. And when he disappears, Olivia is furious! She shouts at Ian and baby William, but they plead innocence. She screams, she cries, she stomps, but is left without her toy and heartbroken. Then, one dark and stormy night, Olivia hears a noise! Candelabra in hand, she bravely creeps into her bedroom to face a huge menacing shadow on the wall, a piece of her beloved toy in its jaws!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4013 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10
• Released on: 2003-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 42 pages

Amazon.com Review
Olivia, like many young pigs, experiences life very intensely. She is utterly obsessed with having her mother make her a red soccer shirt (even though the team color is green), until, of course, she discovers that her favorite toy, her very best toy, is missing, at which point she becomes utterly obsessed with finding it. She looks under the rug, the sofa, and the cat. She shouts accusingly at both her younger brother Ian and her baby brother William, who responds with an unsatisfactory "Wooshee gaga." That night (a dark and stormy one), she hears a horrible sound emanating from behind a closed door, and, in a dramatic scene illuminated by her flaming candelabra and showcased in a fold-out spread, she sees the family dog Perry chewing her favorite toy to bits. As devastating as this is to a passionate young pig, "even Olivia couldn't stay mad forever." She sews up her dismembered toy and falls asleep that very night cozied up with both it and the toy-wrecking Perry. The New Yorker cartoonist and Caldecott Honor artist Ian Falconer (Olivia, 2001) fills his pages with delightful visual stunts, such as the time-lapse drawings of Olivia waiting and waiting and waiting for her mom to sew her soccer shirt and the exaggeratedly scary shadow the toy-eating dog casts on the wall. Olivia fans will rejoice to see their favorite pig being her usual extreme self. (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3-Olivia is back, the indomitable individualist now coaxing her mother to make her a new soccer uniform in red, not the "really unattractive green" of the rest of the team. During the sewing session, Olivia's stuffed animal disappears and the fearless piglet must solve the mystery. She eventually tracks it down, but it is now in pieces, courtesy of the dog. Olivia's tears are surprisingly easily diverted by her father's glib promise from behind the newspaper to replace it with "the very best toy in the whole world," but the independent protagonist resews it herself and even improves on the original. Once again, the illustrations are stylish and witty, now extended by the addition of green to Falconer's trademark charcoal-and-gouache black, white, and red palette. The inclusion of photographic reproductions (the sphinx in a dream and Martha Graham on the bedroom wall) adds a nice contrast, and the endpapers show a comic strip of the little pig trying to get her toy to sit up. The changes in the size of the typeface to indicate volume of speech as Olivia interrogates her little brothers, and as her distress escalates, are hilarious. But the plot meanders a little, and it seems as though Falconer is letting style overtake story. Olivia is in danger of starting to appear more like a bratty bully than the charming nonconformist we know and love. Still, her many fans will enjoy this latest adventure of the piglet turned detective.
Jane Barrer, Washington Square Village Creative Steps, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
PreS-Gr.1. Olivia (2001), the first book about the little piglet, was heavy on charm and light on story. The second, Olivia Saves the Circus (2002), went a bit overboard with its story of this every child's exaggerating. This book gets everything right; the story is simple yet compelling, and Falconer's art is as imaginative and inventive as ever. When the story begins, Olivia is mostly concerned with her soccer uniform. It's green, and she doesn't like it. Mother works on making a new one in Olivia's signature red, but by the time she's finished, Olivia's attention is focused elsewhere: her toy kitty is missing. Olivia looks everywhere, and she fiercely interrogates her brothers. It's only after the lights go out during a dark and stormy night that she finds the real culprit. A marvelous foldout reveals the "monster" that captured her "best toy." As the most successful picture books do, this works on several levels: it's great for young listeners, who will respond to the action and the art, and for adults, who will smile with recognition at lively Olivia. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Review
Do you like pig books? If you do you will like Olivia and The Missing Toy by Ian Falconer. I like this book because I think its funny.

It's about a pig that is named Olivia. In the story Olivia the pig puts her doll down on her bed, looks away, then looks back and it is gone. She looks and does not find it.

I'm not going to tell you more so go pick it up at a store near you and find out what happens. You will be surprised who took her doll.

Helped my daughter overcome fear of shadows
My 3 year old daughter LOVES Olivia and this book too. Whenever we misplace something we always check the places that Olivia does in the book. Her favorite part of the book is the page that shows Perry's shadow against the wall. I thought this page might be a little scary as the dog's shadow is large and tooth-filled - but it wasn't. We go through and identify each body part and its shadow on the wall. Going through this has shown my daughter that shadows aren't scary but usually of things that we love. Great book!

Dealing with Childish Obsessions
As a parent, I've always been drawn to children's stories where the child is so silly that it makes my own children realize where they have the same weakness. When that happens, we laugh about the silly person in the story and assure one another that we would never be so silly. Naturally, such a self-drawn lesson is more powerful than one that comes from me.

Every child becomes obsessed about certain things. This book will make good reading for them. Hopefully, they will learn by seeing themselves in the piggish mirror of Olivia.

I was especially attracted to the 12 part cartoon on the end papers of the book that show Olivia using tape to get her favorite bear to sit up. That little wordless story nicely sets the stage for the main event within.

The opening page of the book provided me with enormous chuckles. I could barely stand to leave the page. Olivia is seated on a camel in front of the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid with her toy. The caption is "One day Olivia was riding a camel in Egypt . . ." But it all turns out to be but a dream. When she awakes, her mother reminds he it's time for soccer practice that morning. The red-loving Olivia dislikes that her uniform comes in "a really unattractive green." Olivia asks her mom to make a red soccer shirt instead. Olivia's mom agrees, but Olivia finds waiting to be intolerable so she takes her toy bear out to play with the cat. Finally, the shirt is done . . . but horror of horrors, her toy is missing! She throws a fit and starts looking around. While playing the piano on the dark and stormy night, Olivia hears a noise and searches out the cause while carrying a large candelabrum. She finds her toy has been chew up by the dog, Perry! Her father appeases Olivia by offering to buy her another toy. But in the meantime, she fixed the toy and made it even more humorous than ever. Olivia swears off dog books as a result, but she eventually forgives Perry and lets him back into bed with her.

To me the strength of the story was the Olivia takes the initiative to solve the problem of her missing toy . . . and then doesn't hold a grudge. The message is that things happen, but we shouldn't take them too seriously if we can repair matters. That's a good lesson for us all.

I think this book will be even more amusing for low-key children who don't get easily upset as they see how another child might react.

I love you, Olivia!