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The indefatiguable (well, nearly) Olivia is determined that there be a band to complement the fireworks she and her family are going to watch. When her parents, brothers and pets express
mute disinterest, she takes it upon herself to become a full one-pig marching band.
The makeshift conglomeration she constructs of instruments and scavenged household goods defies her mother's quiet insistence that a band, by definition, involves more than one person. Olivia certainly sounds like more than one person, and in the book's single fold-out she imagines herself as every member of a real band marching
in lockstep to the familiar Souza notation excerpted boldly above the illustration.
With one wickedly funny lipstick surprise the only bump in the preparations
for the family's leave-taking, Olivia picnics with Mommy, Daddy, Ian and William on sandwiches and fruit, waiting impatiently for the fireworks to begin - "Now is it dark?"
In the deep quiet of late night after they return home from the glorious display,
the tired piglet manages to exasperate her mother in true
Olivia form with her "band" even after she's fallen asleep. While this may not be the best of the Olivia collection, Ian Falconer has set his own bar delightfully high; Olivia Forms a Band, with its rousing variety of good LOUD sound words, is still rollicking good fun.
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Olivia Forms a Band