Quite possibly my favorite book display of all time
The only reason I’m against this is that artists work REALLY hard to make the covers of these books, and they should be appreciated.
I’ve seen some version of this thought get attached to this photo on several reblogs now, and I admit I find it more baffling each time. It has now baffled me to the point of irritation.
First of all, when I say a book has a terrible cover, I’m not necessarily talking about the art. Lots of excellent art makes a shitty book cover. What makes the covers on these particular books terrible is occasionally the art, but is just as likely to be a title that’s hard to read, an absence of color, an image that doesn’t reflect the story, or total lack of appeal to the target audience. This is a display in our children’s library, and the books on it are all excellent books that our children’s librarians know our young patrons will adore, and all have covers that you could not bribe a child to pay attention to.
(Yes, I have gathered from reblogs that we all LOVED Dealing with Dragons as young readers, and rightfully so, because me too, but if you think that is a cover that appeals to the modern child, you are wrong.)
Second, have you ever looked through a publisher’s catalog? Pick any catalog, from any publisher, for any season. I will mail you one at my own expense, if you want. It will put paid to this idea that all book covers should be revered because HOORAY ART. There are lots of gorgeous book covers in the world created by immensely talented people. There are just as many that are lazy, sloppy, and generally terrible. Or, as in the case of most of the covers above, they are covers that might have been effective a few decades ago, but are now dated and unappealing. I feel no obligation to appreciate book covers if they fail at conveying the contents of a book to a potential reader. And as a librarian, I feel fine about calling them out if it helps connect readers with books they’ll love. Which it does.
A+
sometimes a book cover does a book a disservice. Packaging matters.
Yep.