Cover illustration
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The Bulletin
of the
Center for Children's Books
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The Big Picture, a
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How
Oliver Olson Changed the World
written by Claudia Mills; illustrated by Heather Maione
Buried under a torrent of poignant,
brilliant, and very YA materials, we sometimes wonder: won’t someone
think of the middle-graders? Fortunately, Claudia Mills does, and with
continued perception, humor, and sympathy, as evidenced by her stellar
7 x 9 = Trouble! (BCCB 4/02) and other titles. Now she’s returned with
a tale of third-grader Oliver Olson, who’s struggling with various
skyborne phenomena: the planet Pluto, and his helicopter parents.
Oliver’s a quiet and retiring little guy, not inclined to make waves,
but when his class is assigned to build a diorama of the solar system,
he gets sucked into the plans of exuberant classmate Crystal. She wants
to build a model with a message: the recent exclusion of the former
planet Pluto is unfair. Oliver knows that his overprotective parents
will insist, as usual, on doing his schoolwork for him, but after
scenes of diorama-building domestic strife and a bit of begging from
Oliver, they miraculously allow him to handle his own project
construction with Crystal as his partner. As Oliver finds that he
actually enjoys breaking out of his shell and working with alarmingly
effervescent yet genuinely thoughtful Crystal, he begins to hope that
more parental leniency may be forthcoming; in particular,
he’s fervently desiring to attend the third-grade in-class space
sleepover and look through a telescope at the planets he’s spent so
much time depicting.
It may sound like a gimmick, but the tale of a kid who’s been stifled
by his well-meaning parents meshes with surprising effectiveness with
the tale of a planet that’s been decommissioned by well-meaning
astronomers. The Pluto topic is treated with respect and the arguments
on that controversial issue are fairly and accessibly aired, so kids
with their own strong views will find both backup and food for thought.
It also offers a chance for considerable humor as Oliver and Crystal
construct “the first protest diorama in the history of the third
grade,” and as a series of Pluto models turn out to be as ill-fated as
their subject. Mills also mines considerable humor from Oliver’s eager
parents, especially his worried mother: Oliver’s deadpan resignation in
the face of his parents’ frustrated labors over a model of the solar
system (“His parents probably could trust him to write his own name,”
he thinks wearily) makes him almost a wry straight man to the flighty
Gracie Allen absurdity of the adults in his life, a situation with
which many kids will identify. Yet the book creates sympathy for
Oliver’s anxious mother as well as for Oliver, and his concern that he
avoid hurting her feelings rings absolutely true. Though there’s
tension in Oliver’s negotiations with Crystal, she’s no villain either,
proving to be good, if pushy, fun, and an excellent example of the kind
of kid who has so much she wants to share with the world that she just
can’t manage to wait for the world to ask. Kids will instantly
recognize these people and dynamics, and they will be heartened to see
Oliver making it to the class sleepover and thus achieving the
successful inclusion that Pluto has had to forego. Maione’s
monochromatic line-and-watercolor illustrations strike a similarly
accessible note; they’re personable and friendly, with touches of
rueful humor and glimpses of an impressive yet believable take on
Oliver and Crystal’s masterwork.
Beyond that everyday and concrete reality, however, the book offers a
quiet championing of freedom of thought and the sometimes messy process
of brainwork. Oliver’s unexpected triumph is the reading aloud of
his Magna Carta equivalent, a statement about the importance of kids
doing their own homework, to an assembly hall audience that includes
his parents, but that’s a point that’s been made throughout the book:
these students learn considerably more from hashing out the Pluto
issues themselves than simply being told the ex-planet’s status as a
fait accompli. “One person with a big idea can change the world,”
says Oliver’s teacher; that’s an important message, but also important
is the point that kids need practice to work out their thinking on
their own, to construct their own mental dioramas, to learn from their
own individual strengths and mistakes, and to create a thought bubble
that doesn’t risk getting sliced up by the blades of parental
helicopters if they’re ever going to reach those big ideas.
Deborah Stevenson, Editor
Cover image by Heather Maione from How
Oliver Olson Changed the World ©2009.
Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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This page was last updated on April 1, 2009.