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Olivia Newton-John in Grease
Olivia Newton-John in Grease

BooksAugust 9, 2022

When I grow up can I look exactly like Olivia Newton-John?

Olivia Newton-John in Grease
Olivia Newton-John in Grease

A tribute to the iconic actor, part of which was first published in Megan Dunn’s book, Things I Learned at Art School.

Olivia Newton-John was my first idea of what beauty is. Maybe that idea was wrong – but I don’t care, because beauty is stronger than rational thought, that’s why it looks so good in a tight black pantsuit. Besides, there are so many different Olivias. The syrupy sweet blonde who sang about murdering her love on ‘Banks of the Ohio’. And who would I be if I had never seen the music video to ‘Physical‘? I don’t want to know. This is naughty Olivia, dealing out a stiff role reversal. And the punchline to ‘Physical’ – what a racket!

Olivia you crack me up. As for ‘The Promise’ …. one day when I was trying and failing to write about going whale watching in Kaikoura, a memory of Olivia rose up from the surf, wearing a mauve leotard and swimming with a pair of laughing dolphins. Could it be for real?  Apparently Olivia wrote ‘The Promise’ herself, it was one of her favourites. Beauty is more than skin deep. RIP Olivia Newton-John, from all the little girls who wanted to be you.

Dear God

Please look after Mum and me and keep us safe.

Also when I grow up can I look exactly like Olivia Newton-John?

Amen.

I unclenched my hands and hopped into my single bed. That’s a bona fide prayer, circa 1982. It’s just as well it never happened because I never specified in the prayer what age Olivia Newton-John should be. I thought God would just know, because he was omnipotent and therefore it was inconceivable that God wouldn’t be watching TV like me and therefore know what I meant.

The first film I ever saw at the cinema was Grease. I loved it. I did not ponder the feminist treatment of Olivia’s character Sandy. When Olivia emerged at the end of the film in that tight black leather pantsuit and sang ‘You’re the One That I Want’ to John Travolta, I thought her transformation was good.

Virgin to whore: what a brilliant narrative arc! I didn’t understand that I would never look good in a tight black leather pantsuit or that I needed more worthy prayers.

Nor did I react to a happy ending with cynicism. When John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John drove off into the sky in a big shiny red hot-rod, I simply felt elated. But my prayers didn’t end in the 80s – I prayed for a Happy Birthday Barbie and got one. I prayed for a Care Bear for Christmas; God didn’t come through. I prayed for a Cabbage Patch Doll. No cigar.

Grease. It’s Grease.

I got my first – but not my last – Strawberry Shortcake doll instead. Fair deal. Back then, God must have got a lot of requests for Strawberry Shortcake and her pet cat Custard. I wonder if he, like my mother, found it hard to keep up with the new dolls in the range. Each was based on a baked fruity morsel with scented hair to match. Mmmm. The sweet smell of Raspberry Tart and her pet monkey, Rhubarb. Alas, that curly-haired tart was never mine.

I did however own Plum Puddin’ and Elderberry Owl, and my favourite, cute little Apricot and her pet rabbit Hopsalot. Beneath her suede hat, shaped of course like an apricot, her hair was platinum blonde. So I made Apricot speak in a husky whisper like Marilyn Monroe. Dear God Please look after Mum and me and keep us safe. Also when I grow up can you tell me who created the Strawberry Shortcake doll franchise? Amen.

Barbi Sargent first drew Strawberry Shortcake on a greeting card in 1973 while she was working as a freelance illustrator for the American Greetings Corporation. So Barbi made Strawberry Shortcake – well, that sure makes for a sweet answer but of course it’s not that simple. Strawberries sell.

That’s what Jack Chojnacki learned from market research when he was co-president of Those Characters From Cleveland Inc., a subsidiary of American Greetings set up to create and license characters to people who make dolls and other merchandise.

So Barbi was simply an early influencer. Strawberry Shortcake met her next maker in Muriel Fahrion, another illustrator employed at American Greetings, who gave the sweet little redhead some extra strawberries and a cast of fragrant friends. Muriel then gave her designs to her sister Susan Trental, another employee at the corporation, who made Strawberry Shortcake into a rag doll … after which Bernie Loomis, president of the General Mills toy division which owned the licence, said: “This is going to be the next major phenomenon in merchandising”.

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In 1980, Strawberry Shortcake products grossed 100 million dollars. That’s a lot of answered prayers. And in the 80s my prayers didn’t stop, they were just gettin’ started. I also owned Twilight and Windy, a pair of My Little Pony unicorns by Hasbro (each figure sold separately).

In 1984, I got the Baby Cotton Candy pony for Christmas. Accessories: a lavender playpen, a pink heart blanket, a baby bottle with yellow trim, a duck pull toy, a white baby necklace that read ‘baby’, a diaper box containing one diaper to be Velcroed around Cotton Candy’s tush (the diaper had a hole for her pink tail to fall through) and a lavender brush to brush her hair.

Next I got Surf Rider, a seahorse with a separate blue fish float with purple fins for maximum bath-time fun. I didn’t know then that the first My Little Pony was invented by Bonnie Zacherle, an illustrator employed in research and development at the Hasbro toy company in Rhode Island. Bonnie was the daughter of a military veterinarian. Her interest in horses began when she was only four years old and her father was stationed on a US military base in Japan.

One of the animals her father had to care for was a Korean pony – Bonnie fell in love. She longed for a pony of her own. Maybe she prayed for one. But God and/or her father never delivered. She grew up. At Hasbro one of Bonnie’s responsibilities was to come up with new ideas for toys. Lots of little girls want to own horses but not every little girl can. Bonnie designed the original My Pretty Pony based on a Palomino; she wanted the toys to look like real horses, but the marketing department suggested the ponies be pink and purple. Marketing won.

“Little girls had to put their own personalities into each individual pony,” Bonnie said on a podcast in 2014. ‘”When play is open-ended like that it causes children to have stories of their own … That’s when it starts to grow and go.”

Muriel Fahrion, the illustrator of Strawberry Shortcake, later noticed that the generation of girls who collected Shortcake in the eighties grew up and dyed their hair all kinds of different colours. “I like to think Strawberry Shortcake had something to do with that … she embodied things I think are great like creativity, going towards your potential and the freedom to have fun and be original.”

The poster on the author’s wall in 1982

I lost Apricot on my way to school. She dropped out of my bag. I cried. Apricot wasn’t just a piece of merchandise. She lived in a village at the foot of my bed overseen by a poster of Olivia Newton-John. But now Olivia and me and the whole cast of plastic toys that were acceptable in the 80s are jammed in time, like videotape, our lives unspooling indiscriminately, our faces munched then crunched and sometimes Botoxed.

The My Little Ponies and Strawberry Shortcake dolls have gone through upgrades. Everything retro can be brought back, thinner the second time around. Google the past, and you can trace a path back to the patent and the names attached, but can you ever really meet your maker?

Dear God

Please look after Mum and me and keep us safe.

Also, when I grow up I want to be a video artist.

Press play and rewind.


Extracted from Things I Learned at Art School by Megan Dunn, published by Penguin Random House NZ.

Keep going!
Photo of a big fluffy ginger cat. We've put cool-guy glasses and a big cheesy grin on him. Plus a stack of book emojis off to the right.
Mittens: triumphant (Photo: Wiki Commons; Design: Tina Tiller)

BooksAugust 8, 2022

The Unity Books children’s bestseller chart for July

Photo of a big fluffy ginger cat. We've put cool-guy glasses and a big cheesy grin on him. Plus a stack of book emojis off to the right.
Mittens: triumphant (Photo: Wiki Commons; Design: Tina Tiller)

What’s the best way to get adults reading? Get them reading when they’re children – and there’s no better place to start than Unity’s top-selling kids’ books.

AUCKLAND

1  Big Ideas for Curious Minds: An Introduction to Philosophy by Alain de Botton and Anna Doherty (Affirm Press, $40, 8+)

They say:

“Children are, in many ways, born philosophers. Without prompting, they ask some of the largest questions: about time, mortality, happiness and the meaning of it all. Yet sadly, too often, this inborn curiosity is not developed and, as they grow up, the questions fall away.”

We say: Parents of Tāmaki Makaurau, assume the brace position – the questions are about to level up.

2  The Noisy Book by Bravi Soledad (Gecko Press, $25, 0-2)

A board book which is beautifully designed and, in fact, blissfully quiet.

3  A Cluster of Stars, A Cluster of Stories: Matariki Around the World by Rangi Matamua and Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Scholastic, $35, 7+)

This year brought a crop of splendid new Matariki books for children – if we could buy only one, this’d be it.

My First Pop-Up Dinosaurs by Owen Davy (Walker Books, $23, 4+)

Is there beta testing for pop-ups? If so, we want in. There’s nothing more joyful than watching a kid gasp at each page.

5 Where Is It? Wildlife Hunt For Kiwi Kids by Ned Barraud (Potton & Burton,  $20, 4+)

We highly recommend this new paperback, especially for kids who like fact-based books and spotting things in pictures. Here they can search an ancient Aotearoa forest, a wetland, an estuary, a beach and a more modern forest. Cool creatures abound. Ideal price point for birthday presents, too. Click here for a look inside.

6 Down the Back Of The Chair by Margaret Mahy and Polly Dunbar (Frances Lincoln, $15, 0-5)

Dad’s keys are missing. The toddler knows where to look – but what else is hiding in that chair?

7  1 to 20 Animals Aplenty by Katie Viggers (Lawrence King, $25, 3+)

A counting book, beautifully done. “From dogs who have pet frogs and snakes who love to eat cakes to gorillas looking at mirrors and llamas wearing pyjamas!”

8 Inside New Zealand Wildlife by Dave Gunson (Bateman, $25, 7+)

“What does an insect’s eye actually see? Does an earthworm have ‘guts’? Does the flightless kiwi have any wings under all those feathers? Author and illustrator Dave Gunson delves deep inside some of our best-known species to see what’s really going on in there, and to find out just how our native creatures work!”

Animal BFFs: Even Animals Have Best Friends! by Sophie Corrigan (Frances Lincoln, $28, 3+)

This is a big book about symbiosis, presenting various animal pairs via a page of facts, then a page of cartoon + jokes. Avoid if you’re not into anthropomorphism with your animal facts.

10 Crane Guy by Sally Sutton and Sarah Wilkins (Picture Puffin, $20, 2-5)

That rare combo of spot-on words plus spot-on pictures. Recommended.

WELLINGTON

1  The Adventures of Mittens: Wellington’s Famous Purr-sonality by Silvio Bruinsma, illustrated by Phoebe Morris (Penguin, $20, 3+)

Yowl!

2   A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson (Hardie Grant Books, $23, 10+)

Pelumi, on Goodreads:

“I haven’t seen a good mystery book like this since DAN BROWN!!!

OUT OF FIVE
ACTUAL RATING: 5
INTENSITY: 5
CHARACTERS: 4
PLOT: 4.4
TWISTS: 10”

3  Solitaire by Alice Oseman (HarperCollins, $30, 13+)

Heads up from the author: “Solitaire is a story about mental illness told through an unreliable narrator. The presentation of mental illness in this story is sometimes sensationalised, underexplained, and may be harmful to readers who have experienced mental illness. Please read safely and responsibly.

Please also note that Solitaire is a much darker, more graphic, more serious book than the Heartstopper series, and may not be suitable for all readers who have enjoyed Heartstopper.

Alice made editorial changes to Solitaire in August 2020. The edited edition has an author’s note at the front of the book.”

Read more, including specific content warnings, here.

4  The Lighthouse Princess by Susan Wardell and Rose Northey (Puffin, $20, 2+)

So so so so so so so good. Beautiful and feminist and poetic.

5  A Cluster of Stars, A Cluster of Stories: Matariki Around the World written by Rangi Matamua and Miriama Kamo, illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Scholastic, $35, 7+)

6  Heartstopper Volume One by Alice Oseman (Hachette, $28, 12+)

Because Netflix.

7  One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus (Puffin, $21, 14+)

Because Netflix.

8  Counting Creatures by Julia Donaldson and Sharon King-Chai (Two Hoots, $25, 3-5)

Think about the best lift-the-flaps book you’ve seen and now think about the best words to go with. This is what you end up with.

9  Big Emotions for Little People by Rebekah Lipp and Craig Phillips (Wildling Books, $19, 2+)

Haven’t seen this one but we’re very on board with Wildling in general – they’re putting out excellent book after excellent book to help kids understand their emotions.

10 Heartstopper Volume Two by Alice Oseman (Hachette, $28, 12+)

Netflix, again.

But wait there's more!