Sunday, July 20, 2008

Cover Me

More YA in the news! Over at PRINT Magazine, a look at Cover Girls by Rebecca Bengal-- YA covers during the past lo these many years. (Thanks to Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for the link).

As a reader, old-old books fascinated me so those covers were a plus. But just old? Like ten, fifteen years ago (counting from when I was reading the book)? Often just made the book look boring-dated, rather than old-enticing.

I would link to Fuse's post at SLJ about covers except I cannot get to the SLJ site. Darn it.

First Margo Rabb's great article; and now this, another article that says, and I kid you not: "Publishers face a conundrum: The high literary value of the best of these books aside, how can they help a YA novel speak to the latest group of teen readers, across generations, cultural shifts, and trends".

Let me point it again, because it's so awesome: "the high literary value."

As you check out the photos with the PRINT article, ask yourself seriously, "would I have checked out the older books as a teen? Would I now? Would teens?" Covers are so, so important; both for kids wanting to read the book, but also for kids being seen reading the book. Which, also, the article points out!

One more thing. Bengal, like Rabb, talks to experts in the field. I know!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like this blog on children's and YA book covers:

http://jacketwhys.wordpress.com/

Little Willow said...

I said "yes!" to many of the books cited and shown in that article, especially SEVENTEENTH SUMMER - so many people have purchased that book, thinking it's contemporary, and when I tell them it isn't, they are shocked - and I tell them, "Read it anyway!" :)