Monday, September 28, 2009

Cover Uncovered… and the Judgment

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue prints are different

No matter what people say, a potential reader does judge a book by its cover, and I think this is especially so with kids. Unsurprisingly, people have done studies on the subject  - Do Children Judge a Book by its Cover, and found that as children grow older, they have definite opinions regarding color, detail, proportion, and space. The study concluded that males prefer bright colors, less detail, and deep space in cover illustrations while females prefer illustrations with more detail. So you want a cover that attracts a readers attention and gets them to flip open the book.
So needless to say I waited in great anticipation as the team at Simon and Schuster did their magic. During the process, I was tremendously appreciative of the fact that both my editor and the art director kept me in the loop on who they had chosen as the artist – the fabulous Yan Nascimbene, and showed me the first cuts. In order to make sure that the cover is accurate to Afghan culture and the look and feel of the subject matter, I made some comments, which were incorporated into the final design. In the end, I feel, it’s truly a collaborative effort. And here it is...


1 comment:

  1. I thought thought the book was great. It was so good i made a blog about it.

    ReplyDelete