The old saying is that ‘You can’t judge a book by it’s cover’ but I think that sometimes the cover makes a huge difference. This is the latest YA book I just finished reading and I love, absolutely love the design of the cover. It’s set in the future and is about a corporation who revolutionises the health of humans by introducing a form of tapeworm into our bodies. The tapeworm cures cancer, maintains insulin levels in diabetics and keeps everyone relatively healthy. Of course, things go wrong and the main character Sally Mitchell and her boyfriend Nathan are in the middle of things when the parasites turn ugly. I enjoyed this book but mostly I wanted to pick the Symbo-Gen tablets from the cover because they looked so real. They even have those perforated edges that packaged tablets have! Don’t get me wrong, however, I don’t fancy a tapeworm inside me. Ugh!!
You may or may not have noticed that YA novels with eyes on the covers sell particularly well. Why is it so? Perhaps it’s something to do with the saying ‘our eyes are the windows to our soul.’ Ironically, there are scientists who claim that this is true based on the patterns in our irises. When I look in the mirror my own eyes look like the green, brown terrain of an alien planet so what does that make me? Everyone differs in the number of lines, dots and structure of their irises and apparently this may be linked with our frontal lobes and our personalities. Who knew? If we think about this in relation to book covers with eyes on the front, we may be choosing them based on how we feel when we look at them.
The funny thing about covers is that they change from country to country. So Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone looks fairly different in Japan or France than it does in Australia. I understand that each country has a unique culture but I wonder whether J.K Rowling had any input at all??? Some of the covers are definitely lacking. Take this image below, for instance!
The Japanese cover of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone
By 2008, This famous novel in the Harry Potter series was published and translated into 67 languages. Astounding! This ends my rant about book covers where I went slightly off topic, sorry about that! Anyway, I believe the first and foremost reason that people pick up a book is the cover. Next time you’re in a bookstore take a moment to think about which ones you are drawn to if you’re just browsing. Maybe there’s more behind the reason than we realise? I’m not talking about genre. I’m talking about that split second, before your brain kicks in; that intuitive moment where you lift up a book just because …
The UK Edition
La French Edition
Plot Whisperer 