Of Mondegreens and Dogs Turned Reindeer

Olive, the Other Reindeer

by Vivian Walsh and J. Otto Siebold

1997

It's this time of the year when Booksale gets their Christmas-themed children's books out, having previously displayed the Halloween books as early as September. 

Normally, kids' books that have anything to do with Christmas make me cringe; especially when Santa Claus is rendered life-like, rosy cheeks, and beard, and all.  (The Coca-Cola Santa is okay though.)  As a kid I was spared from the lie about Santa, so I didn't really care about him, not that it would have mattered since our house had no chimneys anyway.  I grew up knowing Santa only from the cartoons, and that's good enough for me.

Also, I went to a Catholic grade school, which bombarded us with Bible stories, including the Jesus' birth, on a regular basis.  I knew them by heart, I think.  So all those children's books about the Nativity and the Three Wise Men and Jesus on a manger, yawn.

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Then a nice non-sappy book such as Olive, the Other Reindeer comes along.  Still Christmassy in spirit, but this time the story revolves around a dog Olive.  Who mishears the lyrics of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and thinks the line "...All of the other reindeer..." is really "...Olive, the other reindeer..."  Which promptly sends her on a journey to the North Pole to report to Santa Claus.  Yes, it's a Christmas book about how a harmless mondegreen could put ideas to anyone's head, dogs included.

In Olive, the Other Reindeer, the story-telling is brisk, the events hilarious, and the ending is well-wrapped-up (Everyone went outside to play reindeer games).  There's even a moral or two for the reader. 

Of course, this won't be a kid's book without the pictures, and this is where J. Otto Siebold's charming PC-made illustrations come in: jelly-bean colored, glossy,  elaborate, and cartoonish, which remind me of art class when we'd cut out shapes from construction paper and paste them together, but this time it's seamless and better.  Which is like saying every page is eye-candy.  Perfect for reading to a kid.  Or a grownup.

And because Santa in Olive, the Other Reindeer, isn't too jolly-looking that I start craving for ennui, I like it.

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Incidentally, there was an animated short by Matt Groening based on the book, with Drew Barreymore as Olive.