Olga da Polga

Product Information

These are lively and funny tales with a lead character that is quite wonderful. The stories are written in an easy going way, make these for an entertaining and fun read for the new independent readers. Her fantastical tales from Peru – including a tower of guinea pigs who sent one of their kind to the moon – are designed to encourage imaginative storytelling among young children. So yeah, I was really looking forward to this one, because I love guinea pigs (and other rodents as well) and I just love it when books are about them. Sadly, this one was not meant to be. Where Paddington famously found a new home with the Brown family, Olga takes residence with Mr & Mrs Sawdust and their eight-year-old daughter Karen, who forms a special bond with the animal.

There is also Fangio, a hedgehog with Argentinian blood, who sometimes stays in a box in the Sawdust family's garage, being fed on bread and milk. He becomes a good friend of Olga da Polga, and invites her to break out of her confinement and experience "freedom". She visits his home in the "Elysian Fields", but in the course of doing so, realises just how different the two creatures are. She finds that his so-called paradise is just a patch of waste land beyond the shrubbery, dank, dark, dirty - and full of insects and worms, which she shudderingly discovers, Fangio loves. Wilson Nimmo, who is best known as Miss Hoolie in children’s series Balamory, said: “Everyone knows and loves Paddington, so it was a wonderful compliment to be asked to bring the Olga da Polga books to life.” The series will be produced by Scottish company Maramedia, featuring a “unique blend of live action with CG visual effects for the animals’ mouths, as well as colourful animation for Olga’s imaginative tales”. In 2022, the BBC commissioned 13 episodes of a live-action TV series of Olga da Polga for CBeebies, featuring Julie Wilson Nimmo and Greg Hemphill. A second series is set to air in 2023. [4] Books [ edit ] Chapter books [ edit ] The visual style echoes the innovative stop-motion animation used to create Paddington’s world when the BBC first turned Bond’s stories into a popular children’s series in 1976.

I finally managed to meet Michael’s daughter Karen to show her my ideas. She immediately ran off to get her father’s work and showed me that the ideas he had to bring Olga to the screen, were almost identical to the scripts I’d written. Olga Carries On” is the second chapter book in the “Olga da Polga” series, which was released in the year 1976. Olga meets some new challenges while she fights a fire and lays a trap for an uninvited guest. Also why the hell would those people bind/wrap Holly, HOLLY around Olga's hutch? She could try to eat it and let me just tell you this is a bad idea. :| There are just some things you shouldn't put near your guinea pig.

CBeebies will begin broadcasting the series next week, and Savery cannot wait to share her vision. Her Glasgow-based production company have produced major wildlife programmes including Hebrides – Islands On The Edge and Highlands – Scotland’s Wild Heart, so the team were well used to the length of time and problems encountered when working with animals. Savery said: “There’s very good reasons why they say never work with children or animals, but we’ve always loved facing the challenges that brings. Karen Sawdust is the caretaker and owner of Olga. As a child, she appears to understand Olga much better than her parents do. Besides Olga da Polga, Karen has many animals as pets, and there are many more that live in and around the property the Sawdust family lives on. Olga da Polga is a fictional guinea pig, who is the heroine of a series of books for children written by Michael Bond and published between 1971 and 2002. Unlike Bond's more famous character, Paddington Bear, Olga is a teller of tall tales in the style of Baron Munchausen. The typical plot of each story is that something fairly ordinary happens to Olga, and she gives her animal friends a wildly exaggerated version of events, subsequently revealed to be untrue by what the humans say. Boris – Olga's boyfriend. He lives by the seaside, and is also the father of Olga's children. He watches too much TV, but this makes him a very good storyteller. He rivals Olga in the storytelling department.Olga’s garden audience rapt by her storytelling includes Noel the cat, Fangio the Argentine hedgehog, and Graham the tortoise. Her tall tales are gently shown to be distant from the truth by what humans say. Patricia Hidalgo, director, BBC Children’s and Education said: “I am excited to see the wide range of content and high quality titles we have secured for children of all ages and their families to enjoy together over the coming months”. There were eight picture books released, the first of which, “Olga Counts Her Blessing”, was released in the year 1975, while the last, “Olga’s Special Day”, was released in the same year. Then there is Fangio, who is a hedgehog that has Argentine blood. He usually stays in a box out in the Sawdust’s garage. Fangio likes a meal of bread soaked in milk. Often, he goes out to the Elysian Fields, which is a patch of waste land located just beyond the shrubbery. Olga was named after the Bond family's real guinea pig: in 2014, Guardian journalist Michelle Pauli met Olga number six. [3] Television series [ edit ]