Scratch 'N Sniff

Backstage With Beth and Trina: A Scratch-and-Sniff Adventure! arrived at the library yesterday and provided us with many minutes of entertainment. There are hardly words to describe it (yet I will attempt to!). This is not a book I would ever purchase, but it's fun to pick up and ponder.

Book:Backstage With Beth & Trina
Authors: Julie Blattberg (author) & Wendi Koontz (illustrator)

BWB&T follows two teenage/20-something girls as they head for a night on the town where they go to a night club to see and hook up with a rock band. Each page contains a color picture, one sentence of text, and a scratch-and-sniff circle. The smell options proceed from deoderant ("This is Beth and Trina. They like makeup and music and men.") to a pine tree air freshener to cigarettes to stale beer ("Awesome!") to a condom ("Ohmigod! Beth is hooking up with the lead singer!"). That's right, a condom. What teenager hasn't always wanted to scratch-and-sniff a condom? The book ends with Beth and Trina lugging the band's equipment and barfing in a back alley ("What a night! Could it get any better?").

Apparently, some people (okay, just one person) believes the authors are serious in this book, that they indeed think old guys with balding heads, beer guts, ugly clothes, and beards are "cute" and that it is really fun to spend the night out lugging the band's sound equipment and barfing in the alley. The rest of us realize that the authors are pointing out the less-than-glamorous realities of most night club experiences.

As an update, in between first reading this book and wondering at why the library would buy it for the teen collection, all the copies have been recalled by materials selection in our library system.