I have my RSS feeds divided into two folders, one for work (mostly graphic design and web development stuff) and one for play (mostly bookish stuff). Rarely do the two overlap. Needless to say I was delighted when Smashing Magazine, on the “work” side, came out with “Excellent Book Covers and Paperbacks” for this week’s Monday Inspiration.
I think they came up with some great choices, but I’m surprised that there are no children’s books on the list. Here are a few I would add:
Not a Box. You can’t tell very well from this image, but it’s exactly the color and texture of a cardboard box. Notice the “Net Wt” there, and on the back it has the arrows with This End Up. Very cute & clever.
Another one I’d add is I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track. In fact, it’s not just the cover. The whole book is terrific. The pictures of Switchman Jack are absolutely marvelous, particularly the one where he’s frozen in horror, his mouth full of sandwich, as he sees the approaching train. I also love the way the perspective changes from page to page — sometimes you’re down low at the ant’s level, other times at Jack’s, and sometimes you’re overhead. Amazingly, my 4yo loves this book too. I can count on one hand the number of books my kids and I have both liked.
One more picture book that I’d add is A Tale of Tulips, A Tale of Onions, which years ago I picked up off a remainder table somewhere. The story revolves around the tulip craze in Holland, the one that led to the world’s first stock market crash. The characters include a tulip grower named Ed Vard Grooter, his daughter Gretel, and a sea captain named Drooter van Zooter. (Say it out loud, I dare you: Drooter van Zooter!) The story includes true love, an ocean voyage, rats, cats, tulips, and onions. It’s got rhymes and puns and it’s based on a real historic event. What more could you ask?
Well, it’s also got some very clever illustrations. In the pictures, all the action takes place on stage. There is no mention anywhere in the text about the events actually being a play, and there’s nothing about the story that would seem to require it. The stage business is entirely gratuitous. And entirely charming. The front cover shows the theater poster, and the back cover shows the actors exiting the stage door. In between you see bits of the audience, the wings, stagehands, scenery, etc. The art adds a whole new dimension to the story. Love it!
What books would you add to the list?
4 Comments
Two covers I like: Timothy, or, Notes of an Abject Reptile, by Verlyn Klinkenborg and Unwitting Wisdom: An Anthology of Aesop’s Fables, by Helen Ward.
You really have to see the illustrations inside of the Ward book. Like your description of the Ant on the Railroad Track, these pictures play interesting games with perspective and close-up. I don’t know whether kids would like the book, but it’s an eye-catching and large format to use at the front of the classroom when you are reminding a room full of 8th graders that themes in literature are the grown-up version of morals in the fables the read in 6th grade.
I dunno, hun, seems like judging a book’s cover is a no-no.
:-)
Here’s my fav…The Arrival which is a picture book in the true sense that it has no text. A bit intense for very small people, but great nonetheless.
Excellent recommendations; thanks!
And, um, Steve, sweetie? We’re allowed to judge the cover, just not the book. :)