Spot the Difference

Here’s an interesting hardcover-to-paperback switch. At first glance, what do you see? Telescoping, yes… but what else?

Yeah, somebody didn’t like it that Ivy (by Julie Hearn – Atheneum 2008) was naked. Don’t worry – she’s covered now!

Here’s the UK cover.

Ivy: In mid-nineteenth-century London, young, mistreated, and destitute Ivy, whose main asset is her beautiful red hair, comes to the attention of an aspiring painter of the pre-Raphaelite school of artists who, with the connivance of Ivy’s unsavory family, is determined to make her his model and muse. Ages 12+. Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Am I missing something?

My paperback copy of Jerry Spinelli’s Smiles to Go (Joanna Cotler 2008) came today.  See below – hardcover’s on the left, paperback on the right:

So… why? It’s not that I think the hardcover is spectacular or anything. I’m just not thinking this plain blue cover is going to grab anyone, let alone a teen. They’re both HarperCollins, so I don’t think it’s a matter of rights. I can’t even imagine the discussion behind this switch…

Smiles to Go: Will Tuppence’s life has always been ruled by science and common sense but in ninth grade, shaken up by the discovery that protons decay, he begins to see the entire world differently and gains new perspective on his relationships with his little sister and two closest friends. Ages 10+. Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4.

One Tiny Hand

I’ve run across this several times now, and each time I linger over it, admiring… I adore this black & white photo. The use of red type with black & white, or sepia is usually stunning. Love this cover.
I do wonder, however, if it will have the same effect with teens. Hard to say – but it seems that my attraction to the cover has to do with life experience. The image of a tiny hand within a larger one has personal resonance. I am a parent after all… can this read the same to one who hasn’t been there yet?

Raven Summer by David Almond (Delacorte, November 2009): Led to an abandoned baby by a Raven, fourteen-year-old Liam seems fated to meet two foster children who have experienced the world’s violence in very different ways as he struggles to understand war, family problems, and friends who grow apart. Age 12+. Reviews: 1.

Book Covers Change Lives

A librarian who came into my workplace recently told me about this story that she had heard on NPR’s Story Corps. It’s a day off (Columbus Day) and I finally found the time to listen to the story.
From the NPR transcript “Neal remembers it being ‘risque — a drawing of a woman who appeared to be wearing something that was basically see-through. But the symbolism was really great for me at that age of 16.’”
I went looking around the internet for that cover that helped to morph one troubled African American teenager into a judge – and the covers I found are shown below. The book was Frank Yerby’s 1955 historical novel, The Treasure of Pleasant Valley (Dial). None of these covers quite match Neal’s description. But maybe we get the idea.
When I was a teen, my reading friends and I loved Fairoaks (1957). I sure don’t remember thinking/knowing that he was an African American author – the first, noted by this Frank Yerby encyclopedia article, to “to write a best-selling novel and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.”
It reminds me of conversation around the blogs, about the Liar controversy. You sure can’t tell from these covers that the author is African American. We just haven’t far enough…

Treasure of Pleasant Valley: Here’s a blurb from Jet Magazine (November 2, 1955 page 46), where the book was featured as “Book of the Week“
“When young South Carolina-born Bruce Harkness walked into a San Francisco saloon in the daring days of the Gold Rush, his pulse pounded at the sight of the costumes worn by pretty waitresses. The fronts were full, ruffled skirts falling below the knees. ‘But the backs of the costume,’ Bruce observed, ‘was something else again: the skirts, seen from the rear were merely aprons, cut well above the hips, so that, since the girls were also required to wear black silk stockings held up by a garter belt, and absolutely nothing else, the effect when they wheeled smartly about and marched away after taking an order was a trifle startling.’
“In The Treasure of Pleasant Valley historical novelist Frank Yerby turns to the California of the 1840s to tell the story of the young southern adventurer, Bruce Harkness, in a world where men are driven mad by the greed of gold and the scarcity of women. But in this land of lawlessness Bruce’s life took a new turn when he went to a stream for a drink of water and saw the lovely Juana ‘glistening like a golden statue of a tribal goddess’ as she stood undraped in the water.
“Tormented by the love that he later held for her, Bruce takes flight from the gold fields upon learning that she is the wife of the reckless Pepe de Cordoba, who had become his companion. Finding himself hopelessly ensnared by Juana’s love, he returns to her in one of the most turbulent climaxes Yerby has ever written.
“Like his first nine historical novels, The Treasure of Pleasant Valley is destined to become the 20th best-seller in Yerby’s incredible career as an author. R.E.J”

Scary Covers 2

More covers from “Don’t Let the Cover Scare You.” I loved The Canning Season by Polly Horvath (Farrar 2003). It was so offbeat, so different. Definitely YA with the mother beheading herself (for real!). My complaint with the cover, back when it first came out, was that it looked too young for the content. The submitter of this cover said “I thought the book was incredibly fun to read, and even with good salesmanship, I can’t get my kids to read it because of the cover.” And it gets a double whammy with the title – “I can’t think of a topic less attractive to teens than home canning,” said another YALSA-BKer.
The publishers must have been happy with it, because they used it again on the paperback. Too bad. Dear FSG: How about a new cover for The Canning Season??
I totally agree on Alice on the Outside by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Atheneum 1999). I always thought this illustration had to be one of the most awkward I’d seen. And… if the girl looks too goofy it may repel readers. Again, publisher decided to stick with it for the paperback. Maybe in reprints they’ll mend their ways ;-)
I’m not sure I agree about A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life by Dana Reinhardt (Wendy Lamb 2006). I don’t mind this cover, however, this one was changed for the paperback. And I’ll agree that this paperback cover is more likely to attract teens.
Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden (Houghton 1995 this is the original cover) has been through many cover changes. The original isn’t bad so much as it is indistinct. I’m not sure any of the paperbacks are all that much better.

Some other covers, some UK, for Tomorrow… and the paperback for A Brief Chapter.

Canning Season: Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.
Alice on the Outside: Eighth-grader Alice has lots of questions about sex, relationships, prejudice, and change.
Brief Chapter: Sixteen-year-old atheist Simone Turner-Bloom’s life changes in unexpected ways when her parents convince her to make contact with her biological mother, an agnostic from a Jewish family who is losing her battle with cancer.
Tomorrow, When the War Began: Seven Australian teenagers return from a camping trip in the bush to discover that their country has been invaded and they must hide to stay alive.

“Don’t Let the Cover Scare You”

There’s a new thread on YALSA-BK that I can’t resist. The originator of the thread is planning a display of good books with horrible covers (see some of mine here). What better way to follow the thread than to display the covers on this blog? Here are the earliest entries: Death by Eggplant by Susan O’Keefe (Roaring Brook 2004 – getting a new chance! – Square Fish paperback coming out in January 2010), Who’s Buried in the Garden by Ray Villareal (Pinata 2009), The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (Greenwillow 1996) and Sights by Susanna Vance (Delacorte 2001).

This kind of discussion always, for me, highlights the broad range of taste we have for book cover art (I always liked the cover of The Thief…). Keep watching – more to come!

Death by Eggplant: Eighth-grader Bertie Hooks has to keep his dream of becoming a world-class chef a secret, especially from his mortal enemy, Nick Dekker, and when they both get “flour-sack babies” to take care of for a week, things become even more complicated for Bertie.
Who’s Buried in the Garden: Even though he knows his best friend Artie is a liar, when the coincidences start to add up, seventh-grader Joshua starts to believe that there might be merit to his friend’s idea of a body buried in the neighbor’s yard.
Thief: Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious stone.
Sights: Despite years of abuse at the hands of her drunken father, Baby Girl has always believed that she was special, partly because of her “gift” of seeing the future, until she and her mother set out to begin a new life on their own.

Spinal Talk

I find book spines to be much more difficult to critique than the book faceout. It’s harder to define elements that attract, when space is so limited and so much has to fit.
So what elements can we consider here? I can identify a few.
1) Background color – looking at shelves of books in my library, I found that color was a great attractor. But there’s a trick that cannot be controlled by the designer: it matters what other books surround. I saw hot pink books that jumped right out at me – and hot pink books that disappeared in a crowd of other brightly colored spines. Metallic stands out – but only if there are not too many metallic inks nearby.
2) Fonts, their color and orientation – If the title is horizontal, the font may have to be smaller and more compact (unless it’s a very short title, or a very thick book).  I would have said the only other choice is vertical, usually running from top to bottom. But (see bottom photo) this past weekend I was visiting my father, an avid reader. There was a stack of books near his TV that kept drawing my eye over and over. Eventually it occurred to me that the reason why was because one of them had a feature I’d never seen on a book spine before – a diagonal title. Very difficult to do – but this works!
3) Graphic elements – A photo, a drawing, a design, lines – just something in addition to the author and title text that is there to assist in drawing attention to the book.
4) Multiples – I don’t know how else to say it. Multiple copies of a title on the shelf just catches my eye. I can’t explain it. Along with that, however, is the series effect. Series books will differ from book to book, but there’s a format that helps it to have that repeating effect.

With these defined elements in mind, I snapped a few pictures of spines that I thought succeeded in jumping out and saying “look at me!”
The McKay books above, Forever Rose, Indigo’s Star and Permanent Rose have an element that works every time for me. There’s something about a face (or just an eye) looking out from a spine. I can’t ignore it in a sea of letters and words.
The Crossley-Holland books really have that series effect, and the drawings almost do the eye/face thing.
I include Godless because the starring effect around the title, combined with the fact that there were four of them on the shelf… worked like a marquee.

The Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage has a lot to work with because the books are so fat! But the designer did a lot with the faux old book look, foiled fonts, graphic elements and standout background colors. Love these!
And below, my father’s pile of books. I just love the diagonal look here. It’s so different and the slant is bound to attract any shelf-browsing eye. I have not seen any YA books that do this (hint, hint).

Spine Challenge!

Whoa, life intervenes and sometimes it’s hard to get a post together. In the meantime, check out this interview with Coralie Bickford-Smith, book designer for Penguin books (not YA, but still…).
What was especially interesting in this post were the pictures of the book spines. There are 2 – one at the top of the post, and a better one way down toward the bottom.
What strikes me about this – something that never occurred to me before – is that what makes them so appealing is how they play against one another. But in real life, in the library and perhaps the bookstore, standard order dictates how your spines go together.

A challenge for you! Look at your shelves with a critical eye toward spines. Send me a photo of a particularly pleasing serendipitous collection of spines. I’ll display them here with your commentary and/or mine.

The Wimpy Standard

The first book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, by Jeff Kinney, has enjoyed such popularity as to have been followed with sequels – and it’s own bus. When a book hits the jackpot of this kind of success (who hasn’t heard of the series?) it is, by nature, followed with others riding the coattails of that success.
By now, these jackets (designed by Chad Beckerman) are familiar to most of you (published Amulet #1-2007, #2-2008, #3-2009).

So here are some of the 2009 crop of tail-riders. Dork Diaries (trailer & blog) by Rachel Renee Russell (Simon & Schuster 2009), My Unwilling Witch Goes to Ballet School by Hiawyn Oram (Little Brown 2009), Max Quigley: Technically Not a Bully by James Roy (Houghton Mifflin 2009), and Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid by David Gerrold (Papercutz 2009).

What makes them seem like direct imitators is the layout. Many diary books have hand-scrawled text. What they don’t always have is a square (or rectangular) drawing taped (or stuck to?) the bottom third of the cover. Of course the last one here is obviously a spoof. That may make it a little different from the other three – books that have no direct connection to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

The diary cover is certainly popular – and appropos for the many books that are written as diaries. This group below are similar.
From Butt to Booty (Gert Garibaldi’s Rants & Raves #2) by Amber Kizer (Delacorte May 2010), Geek Chic by Margie Palatini (HarperCollins 2008), Heart to Heart with Mallory by Laurie Friedman (Lerner 2007), Rissa Bartholomew’s Declaration of Independence by Lynda B. Comerford (Scholastic 2009), My Best Friend, the Atlantic Ocean… by Jane Harrington (Lerner 2008), and My Secret War Diary, by Flossy Albright by Marcia Williams (Candlewick 2008).

The latest Wimpy Kid book is due out in October:

Greg Heffley’s Journal (DWK #1): Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.
Rodrick Rules (DWK #2):Greg Heffley tells about his summer vacation and his attempts to steer clear of trouble when he returns to middle school and tries to keep his older brother Rodrick from telling everyone about Greg’s most humiliating experience of the summer.
Last Straw (DWK #3): Middle-schooler Greg Heffley nimbly sidesteps his father’s attempts to change Greg’s wimpy ways until his father threatens to send him to military school.
Dog Days (DWK #4): In the latest diary of middle-schooler Greg Heffley, he records his attempts to spend his summer vacation sensibly indoors playing video games and watching television, despite his mother’s other ideas.
Dork Diaries: Fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell writes in her diary of her struggle to be popular at her exclusive new private school, then of finding her place after she gives up on being part of the elite group. Ages 9-13. Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
My Unwilling Witch: Rumblewick, a Highly Qualified Witch’s Cat, records in his diary all the problems he has when his reluctant young witch decides she would rather go to ballet school on the Other Side than engage in proper witch behavior. Ages 7-12. Reviews 1, 2, 3.
Max Quigley: After playing a prank on one of his “geeky” classmates, sixth-grader Max Quigley’s punishment is to be tutored by him. Ages 8-12. Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Diary of a Stinky Dead Kid: The Vault-Keeper, the Old Witch, and the Crypt-Keeper share their takes on three popular stories and video games, including “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Guitar Hero,” and “Twilight.” Ages 10-14.
From Butt to Booty: Ages 12+
Geek Chic: Eleven-year-old Zoey is suffering the pains of entering the sixth grade, stressing over things such as having a bad hair day and finding a place at the primo lunch table. Ages 8-11. Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4.
Heart-to-Heart with Mallory: Nine-year-old Mallory turns to her diary to sort through her emotions when she finds out she has a secret admirer and her two best friends’ parents may be getting engaged. Ages 7-10.
Rissa Bartholomew: Having told off all of her old friends at her eleventh birthday party, Rissa starts middle school determined to make new friends while being herself, not simply being part of a “herd.” Ages 8-12. Reviews 1.
My Best Friend… Giulio: As a class assignment, Delia keeps a journal and records her life and her fantasies about the Italian exchange student Giulio, who also happens to be Brady’s boyfriend. And, oh, by the way, Brady is Delia’s best friend. Ages 11-14.
My Secret War Diary: When nine-year-old Flossie starts her diary and scrapbook on July 27, 1939, her mother has already died and her father has just joined the Dorsetshire Regiment. The Second World War ends for Flossie on August 14, 1945, when her father comes home. Ages . Reviews 1, 2, 3.

Double Dip & Twist

Here’s a double dip with a twist sent to me by Katie Spofford from Milford, NH. The same photo us used on the YA novel Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz (Hyperion 2008) and, flipped, on Delivering Doctor Amelia by Dan Shapiro (Harmony 2003).

And here’s the twist. The Doctor Amelia cover above was the 2003 original. The next year, the paperback came out with this  Hands With Apples cover.

Thanks Katie!

UPDATE: The post from the first comment can be seen here. This photo really put in some mileage!

Deadly Little Secret: When someone starts stalking high school junior Camelia, everyone at school assumes that it is Ben, who is new at school and rumored to have killed his previous girlfriend, but Camelia is nevertheless inexplicably drawn to him.