Olive's Ocean

Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
First, of all I like the title and the cover of this book. That always seems like a good start. Also, knowing this book was banned frequently in 2007 made me intrigued.

I thought the book was well written most of the time. There were a few conversations between the main character, Martha, and her grandmother that sometimes felt stilted. Other than that, it was nicely written.

A girl that Martha barely knew named Olive was killed in an accident. Olive’s mother brings Martha a note from Olive’s diary saying that Olive wished she could be friends with Martha. This struck Martha very forcibly.

Nearly the whole of the book takes place at Martha’s grandma’s house on the beach during the family’s annual summer vacation. Martha worries about Olive, her grandma’s advancing age, and a crush on the boy down the beach.

I am not exactly sure why this book was banned. On the ALA website it says banned for sexually explicit and offensive language. Martha received her first kiss on this vacation. Martha’s brother refers to their parent’s behavior one morning as MSB – morning sex behavior- as the parents are giggly and snuggly in the kitchen during breakfast. Those are my best guesses.

The first kiss was just that: a quick peck on the lips (can you peck on the lips?). And the parents being snuggling is actually appropriate because it is portraying love and affection between parents that are married which is nice to see now and again.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would confidentially allow Brooke to read it. I wonder if Kevin Henkes knew he was writing a book that would be banned as he was writing it.

If you haven’t read anything by Kevin Henkes, I would recommend it. He has written lots of picture books that we love at our house. Henkes is one of my all-time favorite children’s authors, though I have not read a lot of his chapter books yet.


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