“My daughter is now 15 years old, and she’s an unstoppable force, a human hurricane of energy, positivity, and creativity,” writes Vanessa Kroll Bennett today. “She charges through the world with a huge smile on her face, knocking people over on the sports field, spewing ideas with her loud scratchy voice, and wrestling lovingly with our dog. She is most certainly not prim and proper and her elegance is unique — kind of the way a bolt of lightning can be elegant.” There aren’t a lot of good roadmaps for keeping girls so fierce, she writes. And so thank goodness for Olivia the Pig, the gloriously chaotic children’s book character created by the late Ian Falconer, who just died at 63. It’s a lovely tribute that makes me want to revisit a classic. And if you’ve never read Olivia before, you’re in for a treat. Kelly Faircloth, Executive Editor |
