Olive’s Birthday

Choosy Olive Series Book 1

by Elizabeth & Roger Milbourn

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Olive is very excited about her birthday! What presents will she get? What sort of party will she have? What will her birthday cake be like? Help Olive Choose. In this first book of the Choosy Olive series, the reader gets to decide how Olive’s birthday unfolds. See if you can dodge the odd outcomes. Help children feel empowered and learn about the consequences of choice from an early age in a fun and silly way with Olive as she embarks on her day to day childhood journey.

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Elizabeth and Roger’s children’s book, Olive’s Birthday, has been a work in progress for over 5 years. Life got in the way a bit as did running around after their young children. Olive’s Birthday is the first book in the ‘Choosy Olive’ series, which allows readers to choose how the stories unfold. Elizabeth and Roger wanted to create something a bit different in a picture book and are passionate about giving children choices (within appropriate boundaries!) to empower them. Elizabeth is an avid reader and will read anything and everything but can barely go a day without an Agatha Christie fix. Roger loves children’s books and reading to their children and is partial to a non- fiction. Elizabeth is Australian but has called England her home for nearly two decades. Her and Roger (originally from Liverpool) live in the Worcestershire countryside with their two children and quite a lot of pets. When not writing or reading, they spend most of their time washing mud off the children and the dog.

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What inspired you to write this book?

Being unable to find a book about birthdays on my son’s bookshelf on his birthday one year. Wanting to
write stories for and with my children and a childhood love of Choose Your Own Adventure books.

What can we expect from you in the future?

We are working on other books in the ‘Choosy Olive’ series. The next one is ‘Olive Gets a Puppy’ where
the reader gets to choose the breed of puppy, its name and where it goes on its first puppy outing.
I am also working on a children’s picture book series about the environment and a novel. Plus, I am about
to launch a website helping people to make eco-friendly changes in their home.

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Olive’s Birthday?

Olive, wearing her customary blue boiler suit, knows that girls can do anything these days. She could handle
herself in a playground scuffle and she is just as content climbing trees as she is playing with soft toys. She has a
diverse bunch of mates, and they love having adventures together.

How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?

The book and the characters have gone through quite a lot of versions since inception! Initially it was a
little boy named after my son as the main character, but then I had my daughter and thought we’d better
be more neutral. I also decided that there were enough children’s books with boy protagonists. We wanted
to create something for our children and something a bit different in a children’s book (parents read
children’s book over and over and over again). Having loved Choose Your Own Adventures books as a
child, I wondered if this could be adapted to a younger audience ie the age my son was at the time, in a
picture book.
We are passionate about parenting our children in an empowering way, rather than an old-fashioned
authoritarian way (do what I said because I said so). We find giving our children choices within
reasonable boundaries really rewarding and so we wanted to incorporate this into the book.
Olive is loosely based on an amalgamation of my two children and the stories are based on real life things
our family has done.

Where did you come up with the names in the story?

I think in one version of the book, Olive was going to be an orangutan and it was simple alliteration!

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

Inspiring my kids to read and to write stories. Reading and writing is probably the most important skill
kids are going to learn and for them to enjoy it just makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Tell us about your main characters- what makes them tick?

Olive loves the outdoors and playing with her friends. She loves exploring and she loves animals

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Did you learn anything during the writing of your recent book?

I have learnt so much about writing and the industry over the last few years. It has been a very steep
learning curve. The main thing is to try to have some patience as all the stages of writing and publishing
move slowly. The main wisdom other writers and anyone in the industry give to me is to not give up. If it
is your dream to be a successful writer, just keep trying and trying. So that’s what I am doing.

If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead?

I can see Olive having an interactive series on TV, like Bear Grylls. My daughter is quite theatrical,
maybe she could play Olive.

No matter who you are and what you like, there will be books out there that you will enjoy.

How did you come up with name of this book?

Initially it was a little boy named after my son as the main character, but then I had my daughter and
thought we’d better be more neutral. I also decided that there were enough children’s books with boy protagonists. I think the name Olive came from alliteration where in one of the versions of the book she
was an orangutan. I also think Olive goes well with ‘choosy.’

What is your favorite part of this book and why?

I think I like the silly options best. It is fun seeing how kids react to them and trying to avoid them next
time. I particular like the Slug cake.

If you could spend time with a character from your book who would it be? And what would you do
during that day?

Well, I do really as my husband and I are the parents in the book and Olive is an amalgamation of our two
children. In the book we’re doing things that we have done as a family.