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A regular on the top banned and challenged books list, ANGUS, THONGS, AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING by the fabulous Louise Rennison has a cult following (um, include me in that cult!).  The book has been challenged for a multitude of reasons: age inappropriateness, profanity, and sexual content.  It has also made the Top 100 list, which we can’t help but consider a distinction!

Today’s booktalk is by the uber-fabbity-fab Sarah Bean Thompson, librarian and blogger (GreenBeanTeenQueen).  She’s also on the 2013 Printz committee!  She’s a fan of Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson stories and contributed a booktalk that you can use all year long in your programming:

Join Georgia Nicolson and The Ace Gang for a fabbity fab adventure through the craziness of high school.  Georgia is madly in love with the sex god, Robbie.  Too bad Robbie has a girlfriend who happens to be the annoying wet Lindsey.  Georgia knows that she could get Robbie to fall in love with her if only she had the chance.  And if high school and love triangles weren’t bad enough, Georgia has to deal with her fat cat Angus who is always causing problems and her embarrassing three-year-old sister who is not as cute as everyone thinks.  Georgia’s adventures are always full of laughs as her entries into her diary recount her attempts to survive school, boys, and big noses.  Growing up is never easy, but at least Georgia Nicolson manages to make it fun.

Thanks, Sarah, for joining us!  For additional info to support your programming and curriculum, check out the Georgia Nicolson reading guide.  I’m also a bit of an evangelist for the Georgia Nicolson website so check that out for a glossary, the complete snogging scale, and quizzes.

Last but not least, I’ll leave you with the trailer for the the ANGUS, THONGS, AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING trailer:

Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? Louise Rennison

This is the last Georgia Nicolson book! The very last one!

The band is making it big and going off to London to be proper rock stars. Masimo wants Georgia to move with them! Yes, she's only 15, but he's a Luuuuuuuuuuuuurve God. But first she must survive another Shakespearean extravaganza.

Their production of Romeo and Juliet is hysterical. Although this is the LAST AND FINAL book in the series, it doesn't read like one. YES I like how it ended but... this is Georgia, Rennison could totally write another book starting the next day where Georgia pantses is all up. Which has happened on many, many occasions. To the point where I almost don't *trust* this ending. But I guess I must because (a) I like it (b) there will be no more fabnosity.

Oh Georgia, even though you'd have so much less drama in your life if you just chilled out a bit, I will miss you dreadfully. I love you and the mad gang dearly. I love your crazy family and your demented cat and your array of boys in the cakeshop of life. You have changed my vocabulary forever. You have made me snort all manner of liquids out my nose. You made many, many people stare at me oddly as I laughed loudly at this book flying back from London.

Speaking of, even though I had the US edition pre-ordered and everything, a few weeks before it came out I was walking through Heathrow and saw a giant display of this book and couldn't help myself. It not only entertained me wonderfully on the flight home, but I'm happy to say that the British edition still has the glossary in back. HUZZAH!

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I also try to be a weekly geek (I mean, I do geek out daily in my own special way) but I never seem to get around to it.

BUT! HA! Better late than never, right? This week we're talking book covers. I'm going to talk about consistency within a series. I'm a big fan of consistency. I like the books on my shelf to match and am not happy when a series changes look half way through. I mean, read my rants here and here about the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series.

And Georgia's where I'm going to start, because I wasn't originally a fan of the new covers. When I started reading, the covers all looked like this:



But, when Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers went to paperback, they changed cover designs. Now the first 4 books (pictured above) look like this:



Now, it's been a few years, and the new covers are starting to grow on me. I like that they incorporate Angus (the cat) on every cover, because he is a big part of every book. I especially like the new cover for Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants, because the romantic shadow on the wall is that of two cats. It's subtle and funny once you read the book (although the old cover, check out the man in the moon--it's two kissing cats!) I miss the old covers, but I do think the new ones will appeal to more teens today. I still, however, insist that those nunga nungas would not knock anyone out.

Despite my fuddy-duddy DON'T CHANGE THE BOOK COVER ways, sometimes it's necessary. I've been reading the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (expect a big review this weekend or next week.)

Now, Naylor started writing the Alice books in the mid-80s and the series is ongoing. The old covers needed to go. However, they then changed the covers again and the newest ones are fine, but the older ones are still good. Here's the progression for Alice in Rapture, Sort Of.



And! Some of the newer titles/those featuring an older Alice, have totally different covers! (I'm judging entire remakes based on the "Alice" logo, which is consistent across books, but changes when they redesign the overall package)

Now, these two versions of Including Alice are pretty similar, to the point where I think both pictures were taken in the same photoshoot--the model is wearing the same top! But, I think they're both paperbacks...:



There's a bigger difference between these two paperback versions of Alice in April



And a really big difference between these two paperback versions of


The big thing I can see with the newer editions of the Alice books is that each cover seems to look like it's for an older audience than the older cover. I'm wondering why this is. Alice has always been a very controversial series (Alice thinks about sex a lot. Not that she wants to have a lot of it, but just that's she's naturally very curious about this thing that no one talks about.) So, are the publishers trying to push it into older hands by making the covers look older?

Or is it because kids like to read "up"--reading about characters older than they are and books that look older. So are the publishers aging up the covers so that the kids who are Alice's age (she ages a year every 3 books) won't think they're too babyish based on the cover?

Also, some of the covers needed to change. The illustrated version of Alice in Rapture, Sort of needed to go. But the middle one is the right age for Alice. The newer one of the heart in the beach, while technically age ambiguous, makes it feel like it's for a much older reader. The newer version of Simply Alice looks more like how old Alice should be. She's 15 and a sophomore in high school in that book--the older one just looks too young. On the other hand, the newer Alice in April might be too old, as the older one (where you can see her face) looks about the right age.

What are your thoughts?