Presenting . . . Tallulah

by Tori Spelling, Vanessa Brantley-Newton (Illustrator)

Overview

Don’t get dirty. Don’t talk loudly. Don’t wear jeans like all the other kids. All her life, Tallulah has heard DON’T. She knows plenty about what she can’t do and what she shouldn’t do, and all about what kind of girl she isn’t. Now she needs to find out what kind of girl she is . In her picture book debut, New York Times bestselling author Tori Spelling teams up with illustrator Vanessa Brantley Newton to bring us the uplifting story of a spunky little girl who, with the help of some special friends, is able to discover her true self—and to let her spirit shine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442435315
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	05/24/2011
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	62 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Tori Spelling starred in and executive produced the Oxygen hit reality television series Tori & Dean: Inn Love and Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. She recently hosted TLC’s Craft Wars and appeared in the ABC Family original musical The Mistle-Tones. The creator of the online lifestyle magazine ediTORIal at her website torispelling.com, she is also a #1 New York Times bestselling author of three memoirs; a party planning book, celebraTORI; and a children’s book, Presenting…Tallulah. She and her husband, actor Dean McDermott, live in Los Angeles with their four young children, Liam, Stella, Hattie, and Finn.

Vanessa Brantley-Newton is a self-taught artist and has attended both FIT and SVA of New York, where she studied fashion and children’s illustration. Vanessa is the illustrator of A Night Out with Mama by Quvenzhané Wallis, The Youngest Marcher by Cynthia Levinson, Presenting…Tallulah by Tori Spelling, and Early Sunday Morning by Denene Millner, among others. She hopes that when people look at her work, it will make them feel happy in some way, or even reclaim a bit of their childhood.

Editorial Reviews

Tallulah is totally the poor little rich girl: she’s always dressed like “a fancy, gift-wrapped box,” brings smoked salmon sushi rolls to school, and can’t ever get dirty or talk loudly. “You’re not like all the other kids,” says her skinny, jewel-dripping, expensively shoed mother, who, like Tallulah’s father, is generally only seen from the waist up or is otherwise obscured in Newton’s (Let Freedom Ring) illustrations, which have an overall jittery energy to them. So Tallulah feuds with her mother, writes New York Times tell-all bestsellers, has plastic surgery, gets her own reality show, and... wait, wrong story. In this story, Tallulah makes friend with a poor little rich boy, rescues a puppy that her classmates want to let drown (huh?), and finally persuades her parents that the real Tallulah likes to “wear jeans and build clay mountains and rescue dogs, even if they’re funny looking.” Seldom has the disclaimer, “any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental,” seemed so dubious. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

This puzzling book makes for a confusing read. Tallulah is a privileged little girl who, because of her wealth, cannot enjoy the hallmarks of childhood. She cannot get dirty because of her lovely dresses, and she unhappily rides to school in a limousine. Readers may be forgiven some confusion. Is Tallulah sad because she is rich and lonely? Or clean? Or because she wants to be like everyone else? At the story's climax, Tallulah saves a drowning dog (in ridiculously unconvincing fashion—she throws it her sash). Conveniently, an apparently wealthy boy appears in a suit and tie to help her. In the end, Tallulah confesses to the grown-ups who she really is ("I like to wear jeans") and, predictably, gets to keep the soggy puppy. Does this mean that being "like everyone else" means getting what you want? Tallulah is drawn to look like Spelling, with wide-set brown eyes and blond hair. Her diamond earrings sparkle, and her outfits are detailed, in direct contrast to the other children, who are more sketchily drawn. Frankly, the other children seem more interesting. (Picture book. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews