Best in Show: Book Covers 2011 Children’s Picture Book edition

In the third and (probably) final post in my Best in Show series, I wrap up a year of unforgettable children’s books by listing best in cover art design. The competition was stiff, the entries superb; but these books stood head and shoulders above the rest with their excellent use of color, space, and text.

We start off the selections with my personal favorite, Grandpa Green by Lane Smith. I simply can’t get over the brilliant combination of color and pencil drawing. This story is not only a triumph of design, but also of story. It made a huge splash when it was released in August, and will no doubt be collecting awards for years to come.

 

Best in Show: Book Covers 2011 Mainstream Adult edition

I’ve picked five fabulous covers to represent the best of the best of adult mainstream books in 2011. Haruki Murakami blows the competition out of the water with his fantastically designed cover for 1Q84. I’ve seen it crop up on many lists, and you will see why below. I also can’t get over the whimsically dark Night Circus cover nor the Oliver Sacks books which, when put together, form one neurobiology-inspired picture. Throw in the well executed font of The Uncoupling (not to mention the model town photograph) and some tossy-turvey waves of We, the Drowned, and all these covers are pitch perfect and deserve all the recognition my little blog can give.

 

Best in Show: Book Covers 2011 Young Adult edition

The end of the year brings about lists of favorites from writers across the blogosphere. As one of my favorite pastimes as a librarian and bookseller is leafing through the catalogs of books and judging the selection based solely on its three-sentence description and wondrous cover art, I thought I would throw in my two cents in this newly conceived episodic post I call “Best in Show: Book Covers 2011.” In this edition, I compile the best young adult book covers published throughout the past year (in no particular order). I hope you find them as witty, amusing, creepy, beautiful, and funny as I did.

YA Covers Get All Dressed Up

Have you noticed lately that a visit to your local bookstore’s young adult section is like a trip to a high-end New York fashion show? Everywhere you look, hauntingly lovely girls grace the bookshelf catwalk, modeling intricate and, often, extremely voluminous gowns.

Just take a look at these extravagant covers:

This fancy-dress trend has exploded in the past year (all these books were published in 2011, except for The Luxe and Matched, which came out in the tail end of 2010), a symptom of the revival the gothic–aka paranormal–romance novel is currently undergoing. There’s no doubt that the covers are evocative. The atmosphere is dark. The subjects’ expressions, if seen at all, are forlorn and longing. Combined with single-word titles like Passion, Wither, and Entwined, the images are clearly meant to elicit tingling emotional responses from their teenage consumers, rather than hint at any sort of plot point.

And it works, usually. I know I’ve picked up these books in part to admire the pretty dresses and bask in their deliciously dark aura. With the best ones, I can practically feel the intrigue and romance seeping through the covers.

However, even the most gorgeous dress, if staged improperly, can go horribly awry. The new YA novel by Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me, is one such example. An otherwise fantastic debut novel that plays with classic gothic and dystopian motifs, the cover art is sadly disappointing.The straightforward view had the potential to be fresh and different from the slew of other dress covers. The fact that the female subject’s entire face is showing is a huge improvement, in my opinion, on the trend of using partially hidden features. Her expression is obviously meant to be strong and determined, but  just comes off as a generic runway face. The backdrop doesn’t help matters either, since it, in fact, looks like a catwalk, complete with a door through which the model can disappear once she’s stomped the length of the runway. Even the strike-out in the title and tagline comes off cheesy, although I’m more willing to forgive this, since the style is employed throughout the text as well.

All in all, I quite like the fancy-dress cover trend. Done right, the covers are beautiful and exciting, conjuring up visions of magic and mystery. Done wrong, the gorgeous dress becomes nothing more than a flat stage piece, easy to pass over in favor of the multitude of others vying for attention.

(P.S. Want a full review of Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi? Check out this one by fellow blogger endlessqueue.)

 It’s a superhero story with a female protagonist. I feel like it may be harder to find your own voice in the YA genre lately, as so many novels seem to be playing off of all the other ones in the genre. What Tahereh Mafi does is all natural, it’s her voice developing a unique idea and standing out from all the rest.