Olive and the Embarrassing Gift    by Tor Freeman Order:  USA  Can Templar, 2014 (2014) Hardcover     Reviewed by Bob Walch When Olive's friend Joe gives her a matching hat that says best friends on it, she has a small problem. Olive likes Joe very much but the hat is simply, totally cringe-inducing, and embarrassing. When she and Joe wear their matching hats everyone laughs and Olive wants to hide. Finally, Olive decides to get rid of the hat but Joe catches her stuffing it into the trash. Needless to say, he is very hurt and Olive now has to figure out a way of undoing the damage to their friendship. I'll let you discover what Olive came up with, but it did restore the friendship. True friendship often comes with a price as children who read this book will discover. This would be an excellent picture book to use to initiate a discussion about gifts and what a friendship means. Parents and teachers alike will find this useful and children will like the simple but very effective illustrations. (Note: be sure to check out the facial expressions on the animals!) Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Kids books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews