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.
October 17, 2009 at 8:23 am
lovely!
October 17, 2009 at 10:08 am
That does look like an adult cover to me. The smallish text, the huge sepia picture… I don’t know exactly what it is, but if I saw this book I’d assume it belonged in the adult section.
October 17, 2009 at 10:23 am
I agree that it looks too adult for teens, especially young teens. It’s a beautiful photo, and I love how the baby’s fist within the adult’s fist evokes the spiral of a seashell. But. It also seems like an oddly prosaic choice for a David Almond book, given how weird his books tend to be.
October 22, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I love this cover. It does look like it belongs in the adult section, but I’m sure older teens will love it. We almost need young adult and mature young adult books to be shelved separate, as I’ve found in some indie stores.