Customer Reviews

Olivia Kidney

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book and read it one sitting, then read it again twice within the first week. It's a magical, completely enchanting story with just the right amount of scariness. Olivia is a quirky preteen who has moved for the umpteenth time with her father, who's inept at his job as a building superintendent but lovable and loving as a parent. He and Olivia are both kind of lonely (they've lost some dear people in their lives and can't bring themselves to share their grief with one another).

They've moved into a rather unusual Manhattan apartment building. Well, the building isn't that unusual, but its tenants sure are. Olivia, who has been ridiculed by some of her classmates and is feeling pretty vulnerable and alone, gets locked out of their apartment one day and ends up making friends with some of her fellow tenants, people she would never in her wildest dreams have expected to met, let alone grow fond of.

The writer is deft and creative, with a vivid imagination and literary style that really draws you in. I am a big "Harry Potter" fan and think "Olivia Kidney" is just as compelling and just as good a read. I can't wait for the next installment. (I sure hope Ellen Potter is already at work on the second one.)

The age guidelines say 9 to 12, but I know an 8-year-old and more than a few teens and 20-, 30-, 40-, and 70-year-olds who love it, too. I've bought copies for seven friends and family members and can't rave about it enough. Enjoy!

I loved this story! I listened to it to preview it before handing it down to my 8-year-old daughter, and I can't wait to share it with her. So much of children's stories are "fluff"-- endless volumes in series about flat characters that have adventures but never have any personal growth or deep thoughts. They get kids to read I guess but not to think or feel. THIS, on the other hand, is a quality story. It provokes emotions, and leaves you feeling moved. The characters are full and unique. Olivia, the heroine, is a likeable but lonely and grieving misfit who comes to terms with her feelings and experiences. She does this over the course of a single day full of improbable but wildly entertaining encounters with the very strange inhabitants of her apartment building.

Parents selecting this book for young children might want to know a few things more about the story. First of all, supernatural and magical things happen. These fantastical elements are not as obvious as in most "fantasy" novels. The story takes place in the everyday world, but there are séances, ghosts, people turned into lizards, and magical siren-call singing. Because these things are slipped into what is otherwise the "real world", younger kids might need some guidance about what is possible in the real world and what isn't. Similarly, in this story people talk to the spirits of the recently departed and are comforted by that contact. This also might need some "spin"-- I wouldn't want a real child who had lost someone to feel even more abandoned because THEIR lost loved one doesn't find a way to talk to THEM. It also might conflict with your family's religious and/or philosophical views about what happens after death.

With that in mind, I HIGHLY recommend this wonderful story for children and adults alike.

This is a truly surprising story, full of unexpected turns in the plot and holding several layers of understanding. It seems that as the story unfolds the writer strips yet another layer and plunges deeper.... Unexpected things happen all the time and every chapter brings us new information about Olivia, our heroine.
For me the story was painful and sad to read and I thought it had a very grown up message about death and life beyond. The story is about loneliness and overcoming great pain -how you have to cling to your loved ones...This is how I personally experienced this book and it is this feeling, the wonderful imagination, the captivating stories and the unexpected way the plot proceeds that make me declare this book as "surprising". However, this is first of all a great book full of imagination where the story line shifts between pieces of reality and imagination and the reader has to guess what is really happening in real life. Olivia is only a child but has already the need to deal with lots of hard questions. On one level this is an exciting adventure children story with a brave and clever heroine, pirates, sailors, ghosts and magic. On the other hand this is an adult story full of great truth about life. The adventure story can be seen as a long painful search in Olivia's soul until she finds an answer...
At first the story is read as a regular adventure story -Olivia's father is the superintendent in a rather regular and gray apartment building. As the father is the worst superintendent ever, he usually gets fired after a short while and Olivia thinks that maybe this time this is not so bad. She hates the neighbors. One afternoon when Olivia looses the keys and has to wait outside her door a series of coincidences happens and Olivia moves from one apartment to the other, meeting her weird, special neighbours, each with his own story that somehow falls, by the end of the story to the right place.... The most extraordinary things happen to Olivia but she does not question their reality for one minute; how can she? These things are happening to her! And the reader moves along with Olivia.
Ellen Potter succeeded in creating a delightful imaginative world. As the story unfolds the reader understands that some of the things might have happened and could be accepted on certain conditions; in any case there is an inner logic in the world Ellen Potter creates.
A very unique story which can appeal to many ages.
I am sure this book will get the attention it deserves.

Awesome!!! A great, wacky story that you can't put down till you reach the last page!!! But you have to at least read the first chapter before you get into it. A great book for middle/advanced readers. I read it when I was 9. And its not that hard to read. If you like funny, wacky adventure books this is the book for you! If you like this book you should read book 2 Olivia kidney and the Exit Academy and book 3 Olivia Kidney and the secret beneath the city.

And all inside one apartment building! So much fun to read -- one of those books I couldn't put down. (And there are not many of those anymore.) The description suggests that Olivia spends the book looking for a friend, which honestly she doesn't, so if that made you gag a little when you read it, don't worry. If you are wondering whether this is a fantasy novel or not -- well, it is, but it is not really the Harry Potter kind of magical fantasy, much more the Alice in Wonderland type. One of the professional reviews suggested cutting, but the book was far too short for my taste. I can't wait tor read the next one.

Olivia Kidney splashed onto the scene in 2003. Anyone with a bizarre name like Olivia Kidney is bound to have adventures. And so she does, partly because of her dad. Olivia's dad is an apartment building superintendent. He doesn't know how to fix things and so is always getting fired. Of course, this means lonely Olivia is always traveling new places and meeting new people. So much so that Potter has already written three books about Olivia. In the first, Olivia's new home is an apartment building twenty-two stories high, made of maroon and yellow bricks, and located on New York City's Upper West Side. This in itself might not be so unusual, nor perhaps are the crabby and unfriendly tenants, but wait.... What about the Biffmeyer children outside who are playing freeze tag? The boy who greets Olivia, who is searching for her key, has no shoes and wears dirty socks with a hole in the big toe. He "gave off the faint odor of a barnyard". What about the batty old woman with bird-skinny legs and no pantyhose? She lives in an apartment that feels like it is floating in thin air, because everything is made of glass--even the floor. From her apartment, you can see two women below playing cards. Olivia can also see an unsupervised toddler playing in the bathroom. When he picks up a blue bottle, full of liquid that Olivia's dad uses to unclog sinks, Olivia rushes downstairs to prevent him from swallowing poison. In doing so, she meets the boy's mom who has an appointment with a psychic. As you can tell, adventures also seem to find Olivia. Sometimes all the twists and turns in Olivia Kidney make me feel like I'm in a house of mirrors. At the same time, the bizarre scenarios also exhilarate me the way haunted Halloween houses can. Olivia is a fun character. The apartment complex where they live is weird. And by the time I turn to the last page, pretty much every situation has surprised me in a good way. I can't wait to read Olivia's next adventure!

Olivia Kidney by Ellen Potter is the best book in the whole universe, no joke. It is so good, I emailed the author telling her how amazing her writing was, and she wrote back asking me if I had read the second book and I was so happy when she told me that, because I didn't even know there was a second! You can imagine me, just rushing to the nearest Barnes & Noble as soon as I read that email. I strongly suggest you read the interesting piece of writing!
This amazing book is about a girl who is 12 years old, and she has been moving from apartment building to apartment building ever since her dad figured out that he wanted to be a super. But, Olivia's dad is HORRIBLE at it, so he keeps on getting fired, and they have to keep on moving. The book is about her meeting all these new, weird neighbors in her building, my favorite being an eccentric lizard-owning lady named Sidi who has a butler who tries to kill Olivia! The book ends with her accepting the weirdness of her building and all of their `inhabitants.'
The book has many themes, but the one that had the most impact was friendship and how important it is. Olivia never has the chance to make any friends because she is always moving so when she meets this boy named Branwell, he really means a lot to her because he's the first real friend that Olivia's had. But, she finds out something about him, something that means they can't be friends. She also has a relationship with her dead brother. (I know that sounds weird, but let me explain.) Throughout the whole book, Olivia is reading a book by the woman named Madame Brenda who is a person who talks to the dead. The book is about how to contact dead people, and Olivia wants to contact her brother. At the end of the book, Olivia finally reaches him and they become the best friends that they always were when he was alive.
My opinion of the book, as you know, was of course AMAZING! I thought it was really cool how realistic she made the characters, but how crazy everything was that happened. There was great balance between the two. I also thought that Ellen (the author) was very smart with her choice of words; because I remember after reading the book I had a very good vocabulary. People have said that the age for reading this book would be 9-12, but I completely disagree because I think that this book could be for anyone! I have read reviews of this book by 70-year-old ladies, and many more people of all ages. And, every single person has said that Olivia Kidney is awesome. :)

A quote from my daugher who's 11 and really enjoyed reading it: Even though it had sad moments it was an intriguing tale that was hard to put down.

Olivia Kidney's father only flaw is he can't seem to keep his job as a building superintendent. And every time he loses his job, they have to move. This means, Olivia has to switch schools. To make things worse, his latest job is at a hotel where her neighbors are unfriendly.

One day, she returned from school but found out that she lost her apartment keys. While she waits for her father to come home, a series of events happen and a whole new world opens up. But, the biggest thing of all is Olivia can see and hear things that not everyone else can.

This is the second book I've read by Ellen Potter. Her books are different and unusual - I just love them! I can't wait to read more.

Review by Nona, my daughter

Olivia Kidney is a first-rate kid in a first-rate book. Everyone feels lonely from time to time but Olivia's got it bad. Her father's job is working as a superintendent for apartment buildings. The problem is he's not very good at fixing things. So they're always moving. And since her mom left, things are especially hard.

Now they've moved to another new place. At her new school, Olivia hasn't made any friends AND she has to go see the school psychiatrist. It couldn't get worse, right? Wrong? When Olivia comes home, she can't find her key. Luckily a neighbor lets her into the building. But she still can't get into her apartment and that's when all the trouble really starts.

The author, Ellen Potter has done an excellent job in creating a wild ride through Olivia's adventure. The characters are fun, funny and bit freaky too. At first, I was a bit trepidacious as Olivia started adventuring from apartment to apartment. But she always landed on her feet, so I felt more comfortable as I suspended belief while Olivia met one character odder than the next. Finally all is well as - with a splash and a buzz - the story is brought full circle with a thoroughly wonderful and satisfying ending.