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Olivia is a fictional pig character in a series of children's picture books written and illustrated by the late Ian Falconer, the first entry of which was published in 2000. An animated television series, Olivia, inspired by the character premiered in 2009.
Development
The Olivia book series was inspired by Ian Falconer's niece, Olivia.[1]
The series is different from many children's picture books because of its stark minimalism. Inspired by the style of Dr. Seuss, Falconer chose to draw uncluttered images in black and white with the occasional splash of red, along with the insertion of real artwork by famous artists — Degas and Pollock, for example. Each book in the series explores the use of another signature color in addition to the original black, white and red images.
Olivia books have been translated into many languages including Czech, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, Hebrew and Latin.
BookSense Illustrated Children's Book of the Year for Olivia Saves the Circus, 2002
Voted "Favorite Illustrator" for Olivia Helps with Christmas by over 50,000 children at the Children's Choice Book Awards, 2008
In other adaptations
In 2006, Olivia was one of eight characters to be featured by the United States Postal Service on first-class stamps as part of the "Favorite Children's Book Animals" issue.
In 2008, Nickelodeon partnered with children's media company, Chorion, to bring the Olivia books to life in a new animated TV series. The new CGI series was produced by Academy Award nominated animation studio Brown Bag Films and launched on Nickelodeon on January 26, 2009.[16]
In 2011, Polin8 Media partnered with Chorion to create an interactive iPad application "Olivia Acts Out" available on the iTunes Store.