Vivian Walsh and J.otto Seibold's ninth picture book together,
Olive, My Love, is a whimsical, heart-warming tale
destined to be a cherished Valentine's Day present for young
readers for years to come, even though the holiday isn't mentioned
by name. It is also a cross-over of sorts, bringing together
their two most popular creations, Olive from Olive, the
Other Reindeer and Mr. Lunch from Mr. Lunch Takes a
Plane Ride, Mr. Lunch Borrows a Canoe, and Free
Lunch. As Olive's new book opens, she has been baking heart-shaped
dog biscuits all afternoon and lies down for a nap, when she
hears her friend Dexter the winged dog (played by Mr. Lunch)
singing her a tune. Startled by a loud noise, she opens the
door and finds a big surprise: Dexter has dropped an enormous
heart on her doorstep! Thinking he's dropped it on accident,
Olive sets out to return his heart to him, enlisting the help
of Handler the squirrel, Weaver the spider and a silent, nameless
flea. Of course, when she arrives as Dexter's house, she learns
that the heart was intended as a gift for her and they all sit
around eating Olive's biscuits.
Other than the change in holidays, though, Walsh doesn't take
Olive into very much new territory. The highly linear story
is prompted, as in Olive, the Other Reindeer, by Olive
mistakenly hearing her own name instead of the words "all
of," and so it comes off as a perhaps too literal sequel.
Still, it is a sweetly amusing tale, and younger children will
care less about the similarities. Fortunately for older fans,
J.otto Seibold can do no wrong. Half the fun of Olive, My
Love is in hunting for all the little details. The inside
flap of the dust cover, for instance, has an arrow pointing
to the list price ($15.00 US) along with a note saying, "Who
says you can't buy love?" And a portrait in the background
of Olive's house shows her with yet another familiar character,
Chongo Chingi from Penguin Dreams, who also appears
a few pages later, waving from a park bench.
Artistically, Seibold is one of the most overlooked and important
children's book illustrators working today. Like all of Seibold's
work, Olive, My Love is created entirely in Adobe Illustrator,
yet his art manages to avoid the cold, mechanical quality of
so much digital illustration, earning him a cult following among
graphic designers and computer-savvy illustrators the world
over. Glancing through his books in chronological sequence,
you can observe a progression in Illustrator's capabilities
as an artistic tool, from the rather limited (but no less charming)
art of the early Mr. Lunch books to Seibold's last two books,
2002's Gluey, a Snail Tale, also with Vivian Walsh,
and last year's freakishly beautiful Alice in (pop-up) Wonderland,
which were considerably more detailed than his other books.
In Gluey, the artist made more liberal use of Illustrator's
blends, which he used only sparingly in the earlier books (perhaps
because the features weren't as well-implemented as they have
become in recent versions). The new book marks a return to the
somewhat more spare approach of the first Olive book, which
is appropriate enough, but traces of his and Illustrator's recent
development are still evident in the blends and shading, which
lend additional depth to his already distinctive work.
Those who don't understand the appeal of his style may call
it "disconcerting" (Joy Fleishhacker, School Library
Journal), but some of us -- children, artists and other
overgrown children -- can see beneath their heavily stylized,
two-dimensional surface to underlying drawings, even if those
drawings never existed in the real world. The gesture of Olive's
figure as she stands in her doorway looking at the enormous
heart has more life in it than all the Tammie Lyons, Sheila
McGraws, and Laura Cornells of the world combined.
Why on Earth do these books with their soulless, interchangeable
artists sell so well? Because more often than not, adults are
the ones who buy the books, not kids. And it's a shame, because
I've never seen a child stare at art like that in wonder (or
perhaps it was confusion), as I have with books by J.otto Seibold,
Lane Smith and the other great children's book illustrators
working today. But even as they might slip under the radar of
the book-buying public of the world, eliciting contorted facial
expressions from adults if they notice them at all, books like
Olive, My Love tend to stand the test of time, earning
new admirers and bringing about fond memories in old admirers
while so many others go where they belong: to the landfill.
Olive, My Love by Vivian Walsh and J.otto Seibold
Harcourt Children's Books
ISBN 0152047204
40 pages
