Librio Library #18 – Olive and the Bad Mood – Tor Freeman
3 minute readWhy we chose it
I have something to admit here. There are three wonderful Olive books by Tor Freeman, all of which entered the Librio Library at the same time two years ago and all of which were taken home by my children shortly after. They’ve proven so popular and are such a feature of our nighttime routine that nobody else at Librio has ever seen them.
So, let me introduce to our readers - and to the Librio team - Olive. She’s a cat with a lot of attitude and her behaviour bears a remarkable resemblance to little people you may know. In Olive and The Bad Mood, Olive is not having a very good day. In fact, she’s in a massive grump and she transfers this mood to everyone around her. Sound familiar? And then, just like that, her bad mood evaporates and Olive can’t understand why everyone around her is in such a bad mood.
The book is wonderfully simple with very funny drawings and only a smattering of text, but this book - and the other two in the series - are bound to become firm favourites for a short, fun bedtime read.
Favourite image:
There isn't really a standout picture for us in the book, but the one which always gets the most laughs is when Olive is particularly mean to a friend and she gets rewarded with a ball in the back of her head. As you can imagine, this doesn't do anything to improve her mood at all.
Kids will like:
It's always fun to see a character in a children's book who's not behaving like the clever hero or princess but is behaving just like them. The picture above may suggest that the book is full of ideas for bad behaviour, but it is in fact a very true reflection of how children behave day in, day out. The reason she's in a bad mood in the first place, the way she treats her friends, the sudden improvement in her mood and then the disbelief that all her friends are grumpy is just a perfect encapsulation of the daily rollercoaster of a child's mood and the kids love being able to relate to what Olive's feeling.
Parents wil like:
Pretty much the same as above. It's a lot of fun to read and see Olive reflecting what you see with your own children. We also particularly like the way the story starts on before you even get to the title and credits and then continues after the book is "finished", which adds a nice couple of extra gags. All three books have a fabulously funny sting in the tail which is a huge surprise the first time you read it and a big hit with the kids.
If you like this book:
Did we mention there are two other Olive books? Well, there are and they're both a lot of fun. Our other favourite is Olive and the Embarrassing Gift, which was a close contender for this blog post on its own.
