Withering Tights

May 30, 2011
Rennison (the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books) is back with a new series, this time featuring 14½-year-old Tallulah Casey, a self-deprecating and boy-crazy aspiring actress, as well asâin typical Rennison fashionâa spunky comedian. (Oh, and she's Georgia's cousin, too.) Tallulah heads off to Dother Hall in Yorkshire, a school for the performing arts, to pursue a life on the stage, and it won't take readers long to note that her personality is perfect for the profession. With entertaining scenarios in spades (Tallulah's home-stay family lodges her in what she regularly refers to as "the squirrel room," for instance), a cast of winning new girlfriends, and cute boys everywhere they turn, Tallulah and company work through the trials of adolescence and the mysteries of first romance. British slang is abundant (lots of "snogging," of course, but also less familiar terms like "smalls"). If the nonstop jokes and silliness can become a bit much at times, Tallulah is an effervescent protagonist who will keep fans of YA Brit lit laughing until the very end. Ages 12âup.

January 30, 2012
Tallulah Casey—cousin to the titular character of Louise Rennison’s wildly popular Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series) fancies herself the next great actress, knobby knees and all. But when Tallulah enrolls at an elite summer performing arts program in the moors of Yorkshire, she discovers that the dorms are full and she’s forced to stay with a family in the country. Rural life throws Tallulah into a tizzy, but she is quick to make friends and enemies, and acquire boyfriends. The book culminates in a hilarious production of Wuthering Heights and an ending that promises a sequel. Fans of the author will be delighted—both by the book and by Rennison’s top-notch narration of this audio edition. Rennison, a comedienne and comedy writer who has worked for BBC Radio, voices Tallulah—boy-crazy, dramatic, silly, and self-deprecating—and her girlfriends with breathless excitement, ably capturing their crazy antics. Rennison also shines in her portrayal of Tallulah’s teachers and housemother. And while a younger narrator might have made teenage Tallulah’s first-person narration more believable, this audio, with its irreverent humor, is nothing but fun and a definite winner. Ages 12–up. A HarperTeen hardcover.

July 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Rennison introduces Georgia Nicholson's cousin, Tallulah Casey, a girl just as funny and introspective as Georgia herself, if not more so. Tallulah is on her way to a performing-arts school on the Yorkshire Moors-this fact alone has her beside herself thinking about Cathy and Heathcliff. This will be her first time away from home-she'll be on her own with no parents, no little brother-and plans to discover her inner artistic talents and keep her knobby knees tightly under wraps. Tallulah soon meets a fun group of girls as well as Cain, the local cad; Alex, the local swoon-worthy boy; an owl; and Charlie, a boy with potential-and a secret. Readers will be laughing at the teen's adventures and her journey toward artistic greatness during her summer at Dother Hall. Will she end up with Charlie? Does she really hate Cain-or does she secretly "feel funny" around him? Will Alex ever see her as anything but a 14-year-old? Tallulah is a vivacious and hilarious character who will speak to every girl-she's not the most popular or the most beautiful, but she has her own wonderful talents that others start to recognize. This is a wonderful start to a new series that will attract Georgia's many fans as well as bring in new readers, who will fall in love with Tallulah and all of her quirks. A definite must purchase for all libraries.-Traci Glass, Eugene Public Library, OR

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2011

Fans of Georgia Nicolson will be thrilled to meet her cousin Tallulah in Printz Honor–winner Rennison's new madcap melodrama.

Fourteen-year-old Tallulah Casey is headed to summer theatre school in Yorkshire armed with nothing more than a good-luck letter from Cousin Georgia and sheer determination to become a star. Because other than a penchant for breaking into Riverdance whenever she gets nervous, Tallulah has no talent to speak of. Desperate to impress her teachers in order to win a permanent spot at Dother Hall, Tallulah choreographs a bicycle ballet called "Sugar Plum Bikey," which unfortunately ends up having the opposite effect and the added bonus of spraining her ankle. Meanwhile, she's also nursing crushes on three local boys: older Alex, bad boy Cain and sweetheart Charlie. It is almost summer's end before Tallulah gets kissed and discovers that her talent might be making people laugh. But is being funny enough for Tallulah to be asked back after her fake-moustache–twirling turn as Heathcliff in the final summer production? Though some of Tallulah's Briticisms may be confusing to American readers, her utterly hilarious glossary in the back will help. "The Bronte Sisters: Em, Chazza, and Anne...they wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning. But in a good way."

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011
Grades 7-10 Tallulah Casey is a British cousin of Georgia Nicolson. No, really, not just metaphorically. And anyone who has read the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series, including Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (2000), will recognize that Tallulah and Georgia sound an awful lot alike. Tallulah's tale also has the same bright, breezy, and very funny take on life but with a younger heroine who finds herself in a most appealing setting: Dother Hall, a magnificent center of the performing and visual arts, nestled among the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. Tallulah is not totally devoted to her art (it was a choice between drama and an Outward Bound program). But she has soon thrown herself into acting, yet with enough time and energy left for the usual concerns of a young teen: first snog, small corkers (girls' jiggly bits that Georgia calls nunga nungas), and, perhaps unique to Tallulah, overly developed knees. As usual, a glossary provides its own hilarity: a mardy bum is someone who is so bad-tempered . . . even their bum is annoyed. Good fun!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)