Posts on book covers

Andrew Karre points to this obnoxious article in School Library Journal: "Tough Love: An Open Letter to Kids' Book Publishers," by Diantha McBride.

McBride does begin by saying these are her suggestions of things she wishes publishers would do differently; fair enough. But I wish she'd taken a more straight-forward approach. Some of her suggestions are ones I think most librarians would get behind. Others are just her own pet peeves, but the article's snarky, know-it-all tone gives the impression that they are universal truths recognized by librarians everywhere. And that puts me off. Because that just ain't so. Quite the contrary.

First, though, two points I strongly agree with.

"1. Bulk up those bindings." Yes—especially for books expected to sell big. If they sell big, they'll circulate big. Of course, the cheap glue of graphic novels is the worst. A library that can afford to replace those copies will, of course. But so many don't have the budget.

"3. Give that cover a makeover." Aside from books that are simply old and worn, the books that circulate least are the ones with unappealing covers, especially those using dark or drab colors, "ugly" people (I'm not getting all Seventeen here, I mean paintings that make ordinary characters look strange), and quiet landscapes that don't feature people or animals.

Okay, now the major disagrees.

"2. Better editing." This is the one Andrew addresses so eloquently, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say: I agree with him. I've read plenty of books that I thought were overlong (*cough* The Sweet Far Thing *cough* Breaking Dawn *cough* The Amber Spyglass *cough*), but I've also read plenty of long books that were just as long as they needed to be.

Sure, we want well-edited books, but how exactly is page length the measure of good editing? Some readers, young and old, love to be absorbed in epic tales that go on for hundreds or thousands of pages, across dozens of volumes. The equation of "good" with "short" only works when you're a struggling reader or you've got a book report due the next morning. Neither is a universal truth.

Subset of item 3: "Please, no more stupid titles." IMNSHO, stupid titles are the ones that misrepresent a book's contents. Good titles are the ones that, in combination with an intriguing cover, make the potential reader want to know more. How, then, is How Could You Do It, Diane? a "stupid title"? Do what? I'd love to know! Judging by her examples, McBride seems to think that "stupid titles" are long titles. But based on her opinion of long books, I suppose that's no surprise.

"5. More boy books." There are so many problems with McBride's argument here. First, the erroneous implication that there's a shortage of children's books with male main characters. Seriously, librarians, booksellers? Back me up: when's the last time you had trouble coming up with a boy-centered novel to sell a reader? Second, the implication that these "boy books" must be novels, when studies have repeatedly shown many male readers' preference for nonfiction and alternative media.

But what really boils my blood is that McBride's argument is slavishly patriarchal. We live in a society, in a world, where men (especially white men; especially Christian white men; etc.) are given the greatest privilege. Is the reason boys won't read about girls, but girls will read about boys (a common, but in my opinion fallacious, argument) because of cootie-phobia? No. It's because our culture values boys more than girls, just as our culture values white people more than black people. (And my library's disproportionately poor circulation of books with African-American characters shows it.) And librarians, teachers, and parents reinforce that preference over and over and over with sexist reader's advisory.

Thank goodness we have Diantha McBride to advise us. She tells us, "I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female," and offers examples of novels with strong female characters that could have had male protagonists instead. Hey, listen up writers and editors! Any book that doesn't specifically deal with breasts and periods and pretty, pretty princesses should be about boys. Because boys don't see themselves reflected in literature, film, politics, science, or sports nearly enough. Because boys are the default. Because we're lazy slaves to the patriarchy.

Excuse me while I barf.

Look, I appreciate McBride's plea for more books geared toward reluctant readers—assuming that's what she's really getting at with her comments on page length and "boy books." (I strongly suspect it is.) But that's it's own issue, a subset of what children's publishing really needs. We need more well-edited books, whatever their length. We need short page-turners, long thought-provokers, and everything in between. We need more books about strong boys and strong girls, whether or not they're about "being male" or "being female"—likewise, books starring ethnic minorities, sexual minorities. We need books packed with action; we need books examining character and identity. We need fiction and nonfiction. We need it all.

Basically, children's publishers? Please keep responding to the broad and varied needs of today's diverse young readers. That's it. That's all I ask.

ETA, 7/1/09:
After this knicker-twisting experience, my final patron brought my evening to a most satisfying conclusion. This seventh grade boy, avid fantasy reader, walked away with The Hero and the Crown and The Will of the Empress—books by two foremost women writers of fantasies starring kick-ass women—and didn't betray a single misgiving about the protagonists being female. Booyah.

Yesterday some pals and I were discussing the marvelousness of How Did We Find Out About Vitamins? and started to get into some of the other dubious treasures I've found while weeding. So, without further ado, here are a few more tales (and photos!) from the weed patch.

Kids still dream of being firefighters, police officers, teachers, doctors, astronauts... while other careers just don't have the same cachet.

I love the enormous smiles that textile worker, carpenter, and secretary are wearing. You almost believe they're enjoying their work. (Actually, the carpenter does look like she's having fun! And props to Children's Press for going against gender stereotypes and showing us a female carpenter.)

Dated books in our collection? I have no idea what you're talking about.

My next thought was obviously what about East German food and drink? Gruel, my friend S. said with certainty. Definitely gruel.

Speaking of dated, I bet you can't guess what decade this little beauty—which will teach you how to make a peasant dress, draw-string blouse, and dashiki—was published in.

Oh, wait, you guessed the sweet seventies? You're absolutely right. My bad.

Sometimes the datedness is cringe-worthy.

Food the Indians "gave" us. Indian corn and other "gifts." Because the Indians were so happy to see "us" (for of course we readers are ethnically European), they showered "us" with gifts and then disappeared off the face of the earth, don't you know.

This one, on the other hand, makes me laugh. The headband! The puffy vest! The creased-brim trucker hat! The roller skates! Yes, dear readers, the year is 1983.

This is actually a gem of a book. Aimed at latch key kids, it's a treasure trove of information for anyone living independently. Time management? Blackouts and lockouts? Plumbing emergencies? First aid? Cooking? Laundry? Unfortunately, it is still quite dated (I don’t know about you, but my local grocery store doesn’t let me charge things to my family’s monthly account) and will probably have to go.

Sometimes you’ve got a book chock-full of fun and fascinating information, but there’s something about the title that’s just…how should I put this…a little off-putting.

Sure, I think it’s fun and exciting and eco-friendly to grow yams and alfalfa at home using compost scraps. But something about that word “garbage” conjures up images of dirty diapers, moldy pork chops, and rotten milk, and I lose my appetite. (That said, I’m keeping a copy of this book, in the hopes that someone will be able to see beyond the title.)

Then there are times when, no matter how enticing you try to make the subject matter sound, the reader just ain't gonna buy it.

Yes, I know the earliest known writing was done on clay tablets. That’s wonderful. Humans have lived in clay houses, eaten from clay vessels, made beautiful art from clay—wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. But I’m sorry, this book looks dry as dust.

In closing, I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Listening?

I love the cover of She Dared: True Stories of Heroines, Scoundrels, and Renegades, by Ed Butts (Tundra 2005). We've got it on display for Women's History Month, and while it's too bad no one's checked it out yet, I get a kick out of seeing it every time I walk by.

The woman on the front is Pearl Hart, "Ontario's Bandit Queen," and I love how unabashedly bad-ass she looks. I mean, there's a team of horses running over her arm, and she's not even flinching.

Aw, heck, I'm going to check out the book myself. I wanna know more about Pearl. Maybe even find out where she got that bad-ass hat.

Sometimes it doesn't take a lot of imagination as to why a book hasn't circulated.

Looking at our new book section today, I was reminded of last year's post about library-friendly book spine design. Here are a few more recent books with library-friendly book spines—those that keep the title out of the bottom two to three inches such that library call number and genre stickers don't cover them.

You'll notice that some of these titles are on the long side, yet the designers managed to keep the information high on the spine. Reasonably high contrast, legible font, and personality also win them points in my book.

The design for Ten Things I Hate About Me and The Loser's Guide to Life and Love was similar enough that I checked to see if they'd been done by the same person. They weren't. Ten Things I Hate About Me comes from Scholastic, jacket design by Lillie Mear. The Loser's Guide to Life and Love comes from Harper, jacket design by Amy Ryan. Go Lillie and Amy!

L. at Jacket Whys invites readers to suggest their favorite children's and YA book covers of 2008. Jacket Whys generally focuses on middle grade and teen fiction, but I suppose there's no explicit limitation there.

Here are some of my favorite book covers of 2008. I should say that I haven't actually read any of these books yet, so the inside of the book isn't influencing my feeling about the outside. They're just books that catch my eye every time I see them on the shelf and make me want to pick them up without even having read the jacket flap or reviews.

Itch, by Kwasney (Holt) - Catchy title; bold, sketchy font; and 90-degree rotated text make me think this is going to be a quirky, light-hearted read.

River Song, by Belinda Hollyer (Holiday House) - Something about the girl's expression of quiet, happy confidence makes me want to know more about her. I'm also intrigued by the carvings beside her.

Highway Cats, by Janet Taylor Lisle (Philomel) - The back-and-forth silhouetted cats have so much energy, I expect an energetic animal adventure within.

Grow: A Novel in Verse, by Juanita Havill (Peachtree) - I love the painterly quality of this cover, so light, bright, and spare. I expect the verse within will follow suit.

Hummingbird, by Kimberly Greene Angle (FSG) - Watermelon = summer = good. I also like the way the stock image is softened by the fun typeface and bird silhouette.

Artichoke's Heart, by Suzanne Supplee (Dutton) - Is it wrong to like this one just because it makes my mouth water? I also like the potential symbolism of the empty candy wrapper at the "heart" of the cover.

Thumbelina: Tiny Runaway Bride, by Barbara Ensor (Schwartz & Wade) - The bold, bright colors and retro design capture me, and, once again, I love the sketchy cursive font.

One Small Step, by Philip Kerr (McElderry) - Among the title, the font, and the image, this cover gives me very clear clues as to what the book is about. But there's a surprise: a boy walking with chimps? Color me intrigued!

Over all, what I can gather from this exercise about my personal taste in cover art:

• I like original art over photos.
• I like silhouettes.
• I like interesting fonts.
• I like clean, bright covers.
• I like food.

What do you think? Head over to Jacket Whys and speak your mind!

There's been plenty of talk about the "headless" trend in kids'/YA book covers, but I've never seen a post quite so snarky as Peter's at Collecting Children's Books. On How to Build a House, by Dana Reinhardt:

A group of teenagers converge on a small Tennesse town to rebuild a house that was destroyed in a tornado. By the time the summer is over, the house will be completely built—but several of the young adults will have lost their heads. This novel is a testament to the importance of volunteer work...and the dangers of untrained teens using power tools.

Get lots more snark, and some really awful puns, here!

When I wrote my post about book spine design last month, I thought I was doing nothing more than griping to the ether. Then yesterday I received a comment from the marketing manager of Center Point Large Print, a small publisher based in Thorndike, Maine (that town should ring a bell for anyone who works with large type books). He said that as of this fall, they’ll be leaving the bottoms of their books’ spines blank to leave room for library cataloging information! How about that? Special thanks to my friend Dan for spreading the word to all those ALA members, transforming my rant into an instrument of actual change.

Continuing the theme of book design, editor Alvina Ling posted some interesting thoughts about the challenge of designing books to please everyone, over at Blue Rose Girls. All the book jackets she shows in her post are, of course, highly attractive. But don’t you wonder how some of the covers out there slip through?

As anyone who’s worked in a library knows, weeding the collection (or pruning, withdrawal, deselection, [your euphemism here]) is a bittersweet fact of life. With limited shelf and storage space, we simply cannot keep every book we buy indefinitely. Books that are out-of-date or in poor condition are the first to go. But if the shelves are still too crowded, the less popular books have to go, too. That’s the bitter part: saying goodbye to books that are in good condition and got good reviews (presumably, or we wouldn’t have bought them to begin with) but have sat unmoving on the shelf for years at a time. The sweet part, of course, is having room for new good books.

One of my colleagues is weeding our junior high fiction section right now. The impact of a book’s cover is never more glaring than when you see dozens of noncirculating books all together on a cart. The vast majority of these books have covers that are dark, drab, low-contrast, and/or generally unattractive (blah landscapes, ugly people, too old-fashioned, etc.). They are books that you know even if they were the most amazing stories in the world, you’d never get a kid to crack them without the smoothest hand-selling job in history.

Unappealing covers are enough to strike fear into the hearts of any author who wants people to, you know, actually pick up their books. But it gets worse. Over at the Longstockings blog, Coe Booth has posted about not one, but two, instances of author friends’ books being blocked by a major bookselling chain because of their covers. Apparently, this isn’t an uncommon phenomenon. Yikes! (Of course, I am madly curious what it was about the covers that made them contentious…)

Coincidentally, my husband is currently enjoying Chip Kidd’s not-quite-coffee-table book Chip Kidd: Work 1986–2006. Book One (Rizzoli, 2005), and I’ve been reading over his shoulder a bit. Chip Kidd, as well as being a novelist in his own right, has designed hundreds of book covers, including the iconic cover of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. (Ironically, Kidd's book was bound as a strange hardcover/paperback hybrid. Repeated—i.e., library—use has cause the wide, flimsy pages to tear away from the binding. Clever-looking design, but low on usability and durability.)

Finally, interested in book design of yore? How about books that were basically Ping Pong paddles covered with ox horn? I loved Collecting Children’s Books’ post about horn books and battledores, those centuries-old tools for teaching children to read. Peter’s got some great photos and trivia there. For example, did you know that “xylophone,” that classic X-word of alphabet books, wasn’t coined until 1866? (And forget about X-rays, of course!) Follow the link to learn what authors did for letter X prior to that, and more...

Recently, both Fuse #8 and PRINT magazine in its article "Cover Girls" discussed the covers of particular children's and YA as they've been redesigned over the years. Jacket Why and Collecting Children's Books are two more of my favorite blogs that address the trends and changes in children's/YA book cover design.

I love this kind of stuff. Book jackets are the clothes books wear; they grab your attention and make you give that book the sly up-and-down look. It's interesting to see what fashions (if any) hold up over time and which are as hopelessly out of date as that orange and avocado flowered sofa you picked up at a yard sale for $10. (I really did once buy a sofa of said description, back in college. It was six feet long and the most comfortable piece of furniture EVER. But boy, it was ugly as sin.) I believe an unattractive cover can staggeringly reduce a book's readership. It doesn't matter how often we say not to judge a book by its cover; readers of all ages will.

Something I haven't seen discussed, though, is the face books present to potential readers once they're on the shelf. In libraries and bookstores, where face-out shelving is at a premium, readers' first impression of a book isn't the cover. It's the spine.

My general impression is that books have improved immeasurably in spine design in the past couple decades. When I think back to my childhood, most of the hardcover spines I remember had plain printing in a stately serif font; the paperbacks bore the title and author's name in simple, black caps. I think we're seeing many more wrap-around jacket designs now, more artistic typography, and generally more creativity in book jacket design, spines included.

When readers are faced with rows upon rows of spine-out books, what draws them to a particular volume, causes them to pull it off the shelf so they can then be enticed by the cover design and the jacket copy?

I believe it's two interrelated variables: the title and the spine design. The title is the spine's most important content. First and foremost, the title should be easy to read. Readers should be able to identify the book without squinting or pulling it off the shelf. That's something the old-style, no-nonsense, K.I.S.S. spines had going for them: pure functionality. Artistry is important, but it should come in a rather distant second.

Here are book spines that score high on both title legibility and artistic design, making them magnets when I was looking through the stacks:

In contrast, here are some things I don't like to see:

• Print that wears off the binding after a few reads. Yes, Series of Unfortunate Events, I'm looking at you.
• Low contrast between title and background.
• Highly stylized writing, whether it's print or cursive.
• Gold or silver foil, which is very susceptible to shadow and glare. (Orphan of the Sun actually liked the light in my office, but I no longer have a bloody clue what the foil-lettered book beneath it is.)

Another thing that drives me crazy, from my library-centric point of view, is titles that are placed near the bottom, rather than the top, of the spine:

Most libraries place books' location stickers within the two bottom inches of the spine. For functionality's sake, libraries cannot simply move those stickers around on a book-by-book basis. The only exceptions we'll make are for a book like, say, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

It would be far better if publishers simply avoided placing vital information in those bottom two inches of spine. From readers' point of view, I'd say the least vital spine information is the publisher's seal. If that's a blow to the publisher's ego, too bad. From the library's point of view, the author's name is second-least important, since the location sticker—especially for fiction books—generally includes the author's name. If one thing should be legible, without a question, it is the title.

The situation worsens when you take genre stickers into account. Now, genre stickering is a discussion piece of its own (do genre stickers ghettoize the collection?), but a great many libraries use them. My library's practice is to place the genre sticker immediately above the location sticker, effectively covering the bottom three inches of spine. We could reduce that space by placing genre stickers below the location stickers, but that's where our "new book" labels go:

But even when we switch the stickers around, we still run into problems with many books:

I've suggested that my department reduce the problem by adopting a different stickering practice for its fiction collections, something more like this:

But in general, I think the world of books would be better if publishers simply kept titles higher on the spine. Even a long title can be made to fit in a compact space, with high points for legibility and artistic design:

That's my soapbox rant, a week late and, as promised, not particularly controversial. But again, it's something I haven't seen discussed, and it bears consideration.

We all know the current trend of photographic book covers for novels. Much has been made of trends to show just feet, just torsos, or various other truncated body parts. But lately I’ve been noticing more photographic book covers that show actual faces.

One side effect, of course, is that readers are given a very strong suggestion of what the main character looks like, rather than letting them use their imaginations—like seeing a still shot from the movie based on the book.

I wonder if the trend is part of our society’s general obsession with things that are “real”: movies “based on the true story,” reality television, etc. If the main character of a novel has apparently been captured on film, does that make the story seem more real?

This past week, I’ve been struck by something else about these headshot/full-body photo covers—something that’s made me wonder about just what-all goes into publishers’ decisions about which models they use…

Case Study #1: Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson
Quick, who’s the most famous Scarlett you know? Scarlett O’Hara, you say? Okay, second-most famous, then—and a real person, to boot. In fact, the only real person I can think of named Scarlett. (It’s not a common name, after all.) That’s right: Scarlett Johanssen.

Is it just a coincidence that the model on the cover of Suite Scarlett looks startlingly like Scarlett Johanssen? I’m not saying she’s a dead ringer (okay, it's mostly the hair), but take a look at Photo A and Photo B and tell me there’s not a resemblance.

So, is Scarlett Johanssen unwittingly selling books for Maureen Johnson? Not that Maureen Johnson needs help selling books! And maybe most of her young fans don’t know or care about Scarlett Johanssen anyway—but adult buyers, on the other hand…

Case Study #2: Band Geek Love, by Josie Bloss
Stop me if this rings a bell: “This one time? At band camp?” Yeah, I thought that would be enough. Even if you’re lucky enough to have missed the movie American Pie, a few years back you probably heard that line repeated often enough to feel like you’d been there after all. It’s spoken, of course, by Alyson Hannigan’s character. Alyson Hannigan… the band geek… with red hair… cut in a pageboy.

She played the flute (you probably knew that, too) instead of the trumpet. And again, many/most of this book’s readers haven’t seen American Pie either. But is Alyson Hannigan unwittingly helping sell Band Geek Love to adults?

Of course, Hannigan gained most of her fans through her role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I’d bet a very healthy percentage of those fans were band geeks themselves. So, maybe it’s only natural!

Case Study #3: Allie Finkle’s Rules for Life: Moving Day, by Meg Cabot
I’m stretching a bit here, but I can’t help looking at this book cover without thinking of one very famous person. Wait, make that two very famous people. Maybe it’s the clothes. Maybe it’s the hair. Or the complexion. Or the mouth. But all my brain can think is Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

(Amazon’s images for this book are pretty crummy, but Meg Cabot’s got a good image on her site.)

This may all be in my head. Or maybe it’s only my astounding television/movie star ignorance that has kept me from seeing celebrities in the faces of all photographic book covers.

What do you think?

ETA 5/30/08:

Case Study #4: How to Be Bad, by E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Lauren Myracle
Tell me you look at this one and don't think of everybody's (latest) favorite British waif, who in various films has played soccer, fought pirates (including undead ones), and worn tight, Victorian dresses in the rain. That's right, I'm thinking of none other than Keira Knightley.