Pigging out.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Olivia Says Good Night - Olivia Goes to Venice - Children's review - Book review

Olivia Says Good Night

By Gabe Pulliam and Farrah

McDoogle

Illustrated by Patrick Spaziante

Simon Spotlight, an imprint of Simon

& Schuster. 24 pages. $16.99.

Olivia Goes to Venice

By Ian Falconer

Atheneum Books for Young Readers,

an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

48 pages. $17.99.

School book fairs are notorious for pushing schlock. I've grown accustomed to dragging my kids past the Disney princess tchotchkes, the books that are really TV show spin-offs, the stuffed animals and gaudy electronic games that have nothing to do with reading.

But unlike cookie dough and wrapping paper sales, the book fair is not supposed to be just another effort to make up for shrinking school budgets by getting you to buy crap you don't want.

Since it takes place in the school library and is often promoted with events like "family literacy night" at my kids' school, the book fair

has an aura of educational respectability.

The Scholastic company ships the books to school librarians, and parent volunteers run the cash register. Kids get "book bucks" from their teachers, so they can buy a book even if their parents can't afford it. In the end, the school makes a cut of the profits, and kids are encouraged to read. What's not to like?

Wading through the winter book fair with my preschooler, dodging stuffed animals and overpriced erasers, I emerged with a pile of nice-looking books that my five-year-old and I could agree on. Phew.

When I got home, I cracked open two new bedtime stories featuring Olivia, the spoiled but lovable pig created by famed New Yorker cover artist Ian Falconer.

That's when I realized I'd been had.

These were not books in the familiar series by the witty and sophisticated Falconer, a protege of artist David Hockney, who spun out the Olivia stories from a book he designed in 2000 as a gift for his favorite niece, setting a new standard for children's book design.

No, this was a transcript of the Nickelodeon cartoon.

I should have been tipped off by that tiny trademark sign next to the name Olivia on the front of the book. Those little letters don't appear on the real Olivia books.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

I could tell the difference on the flimsy paperbacks, with their busy, cartoon covers. They don't look anything like Falconer's simple, beautifully spare design. Plus, there's the banner on the cover: "As seen on Nickelodeon."

But Olivia Says Good Night is deliberately designed to look just like a real Olivia book--a clean, simple hardback with...