Last blog cycle I had a lot of fun judging the covers of books from The New York Times’s “7 Great Contemporary Novels for Teenagers,” so this week I found a similar article. This post’s article, “10 of the best books for teens,” is from Good Housekeeping.
#1 ~ Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
Based on the title, the quote at the bottom, and the numerous hearts decorating the cover, I think this is a romance. Because it specifically says “girls in love,” it probably leans more towards a young adult book. I can also see in the top corner that it has an illustrator, meaning it might be on the younger side of YA books. Most YA books are not heavily illustrated, if at all.
#2 ~ I Will Not Be Erased by Gal-dem
Because the book is subtitled “our stories about growing up as people of color,” I think this is a collection of stories. I’ve read books in similar formats, and I think they’re really cool, because they’re almost like a collective biography. I like that the “erased” part of the title is being erased, because that is good graphic design. The fonts are all very striking and so is the color scheme – I think this speaks to the bold nature of the book’s contents.
#3 ~ I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
I have read this book, but even if I hadn’t, the contents of the book are evident by the cover design. It says at the top that it’s a non-fiction book, and an award-winning one at that. Because the title is the author’s name, along with the fact that it is non-fiction, I could conclude that this is a biography. The subtitle tells you the very basic information about the story itself, which is pretty rare in fiction books.
#4 ~ Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
I have read this book too! It is about a society where Crosses, darker-skinned people, make up all of the high class, and Noughts, lighter-skinned people, are generally poor and many are servants to the Crosses. Interracial relationships are punishable by death, so this story is a Romeo and Juliet romance between Sephy, a Cross, and Callum, a Nought. I think the cover is very pretty, it depicts the two main characters in a simplistic fashion. A cool technique they used is that the words of the title are shaped in such a way that they look like the characters’ silhouettes.
#5 ~ Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
A big clue about this book is that they chose to use a quote with “heart-wrenching” in it on the title. I’m guessing that one of the main characters dies, or is really sad for some reason. I can’t exactly tell what the big tangle of stuff on the bottom half is. Maybe it’s the “everything” that the title references? It definitely utilizes negative space well.
#6 ~ In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne
Even with the amount of content on this cover, it’s hard to tell what this book is about. I notice that they used the same building several times on the cover. Maybe it’s some sort of Groundhog Day situation, where the main character has to experience the same things over and over. (It could also just be bad graphic design.) I like the color scheme of gray, pink and orange. The gray makes it seem sort of dreary, but the pops of color bring it out of that a little.
#7 ~ The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
I reviewed this book cover in a previous article!
#8 ~ The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Even though this book cover has a pretty happy color scheme, it seems a little dark. Maybe it’s just the title making me think that. Or the person running through a cornfield at the bottom, because cornfields aren’t usually a good sign. I really like how this cover looks like it’s been made out of different layers of paper.
#9 ~ The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The plants on the border of this book cover make me think it is set somewhere a little rustic. You don’t usually see roses mixed with wheat, though. I think this could represent finding beauty in the everyday. I assume the silhouette is of the main character, but that is about all I can tell from this cover.
#10 ~ The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
I reviewed a cover of this book in the last article as well, but this is a different design. It seems very plain compared to the other one. The color scheme is basic, and even though I’ve read the book several times I have no idea what the clouds could represent. It doesn’t offer much insight into the contents of the story.
- Anna
I think the cover of the book can give a lot of details regarding the basic plot and mood of the book. I haven't read any of these books, but I think I might give the third one a shot. Fiction books are starting to get a bit boring for me, so reading a non-fiction book might be refreshing.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting analysis. I agree that a lot of the covers don't really give much insight into what the book is about, but I think that some of that could be due to the illustrator not actually reading the book.
ReplyDeleteWait this is a really cool idea! The amount of depth that you went into for each cover and how you described them was really cool. I would just like to say that book #4 sounds extremely interesting and I definitely want to read that. It's interesting how some book covers are direct representations of what actually happens in the book, while others have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book.
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea for blogs! Even though I shouldn't, I find myself judging books way to often based on their cover. I like how you tried to guess what the book was about based on the cover it was very entertaining.
ReplyDeleteWow! How are you even able to do this? I take a look at covers and most of the time I can't figure out what they're about other than what I can glance from the title and reviews. I would never consider something like the boldness in the title's font, or the nature of plants on the cover. The cover of Girls in Love and The Fault in Our Stars just seem kind of lazy to me and they don't really say anything about the book.
ReplyDelete