New Harry Potter book covers - perpetually 11

The new cover art work for the Harry Potter series was announced by Bloomsbury just the other day. I must say, they look amazing. The stunningly beautiful redesigned art work was done by acclaimed artist Jonny Duddle. 

You can see the covers here on the Bloomsbury website. http://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com

The style is modern and colourful, and what I like most is how descriptive they are. You can assume that the new generation of kids the covers are aimed for have watched or will watch the movies; and the imagery directly evokes scenes from the films, such as the Patronus Charm in The Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry's fight with the dragon in The Goblet of Fire.

But there's one thing in the covers that I find strange. Here, take a look.

The Harry Potter series takes place over seven years and Harry hasn't grown at all. Comparing book one to book seven, Harry looks as though he's the same age - 11. Harry's height only comes up to Dumbledore's waist in The Half Blood Prince. The covers may be aimed at children, but I see no point in keeping Harry as a small child in the covers, when he keeps growing within the story. The covers are supposed to help the readers imagine the entire world, so the inconsistency of Harry's appearance irks me.

Taking a closer, comparative look at the Harrys' faces, you can clearly see that he should age. The face in The Deathly Hollows cover is slightly skinnier, but the youthfulness is still there. I understand that you want the main character in the cover to reflect the target audience, but let me tell you, they will grow by the time they get to the last book. I was 14 when I first started reading the books and I was 19 by the time I finished.

The new covers are aimed at the post-film generation and I believe they needed to take it that one step further in ageing Harry to make it true to the story.

Looking for Alaska - book review

While the world is focusing on The Fault in Our Stars, I decided to read John Green's first novel Looking for Alaska. As interested as I am in The Fault in Our Stars, both novel and movie, I usually prefer to read the author's first book first.

First Impressions

The first thing I see is the big, gold medal embossed to the front. Looking for Alaska won the Michael L. Printz Award, so immediately my expectations are high for this book. I mean, you'd have to be really confident with the book to put the medal on the cover in a way that it outshines everything else on the cover. The minimalist design is definitely popular these days, but I think this is too simple. This puff of smoke could be anything and you don't even need Photoshop to accomplish it. Just go on escapemotions.com or even deviantart. I know there's an app for smoke art too. I'm not too keen on the glossy black cover paper either. I've left a lot of fingerprints on the paper and it bothers me. I'm OCD like that.

Plot

Looking for Alaska is divided into two parts - Before and After. Miles Halter is a 16 year old boy in Florida with no friends, so decides to go to a boarding school, that his father had also attended, in search of "the Great Perhaps". We meat some great characters likes Chip Martin, Takumi Hikohito, Lara Buterskaya and of course Alaska Young. Alaska is the complete opposite of Miles - she's impulsive, loud and can go from happy to flirty to moody to hysterical in a matter of seconds. Now let me say, this boarding school is nothing like Hogwarts. Just in case you were expecting some magic. Nope. No magic here. This is a slice of life novel that follows Miles for one school year as he makes friends, enemies and falls in love.

That's the Before. Now for the After... Well, no spoilers here.

What Worked

This is a novel, just like it says on the front cover, a novel. Apparently whether this is a novel or not needs to be clarified. But yes, Looking for Alaska is definitely a novel, even though there are no chapters. The Before is divided into days that are a couple of pages long at most which count down to the big occurrence. The After counts the days afterwards. There are no villains or heroes in this book to provide ups and downs, apart from that one occurrence, so the countdown helps build up those feelings far better than chapters ever could. I often found myself thinking "I'll just read one more day then go to bed" and read about five more. It really carried me along the book, just as days do in life. Just as you might think "Is it Thursday already?" you'll be thinking "I finished half the book already."

The other benefit for the days is it makes the book great for interruptions. You can be reading, then be interrupted, then go straight back to reading as though you never put it down. It's a great read when you're travelling, waiting at a doctor's office, during the holidays when you have family visiting.

Mixed Feelings

There are a few things Joh Green did that I'm not entirely sure worked. One thing is the lists. Looking for Alaska is written in Miles' point of view and in the beginning of the book John Green uses lists to express Miles' feelings and opinions. I felt that the lists 1. distracted from the story 2. interrupted the otherwise well flowing prose 3. got annoying after a while 4. even the author stopped doing it later on 5. there are better ways to express feelings than lists.

There is an abundance of titles to make people and events more significant.

     The Colonel

     The Eagle

     The Old Man

     The Great Perhaps

     The Honk

     The Duct Tape Incident

     The Look of Doom

     The Smoking Hole

And so forth. I don't know if this is really how teenagers talk nowadays, but I felt it over-signified events that didn't need to be.

Please Fix

Page 170

     The Colonel sighed and pulled a pack of Pudge a Fund cigarettes of his jeans pocket. "Why not?"

     "Because I don't want to! Do I have provide you with an in-depth analysis of every decision I make?"

It should be "cigarettes out of his" and "Do I have to provide". I can forgive a typo now and then, but not two omitted words within two lines.

Controversy

Looking for Alaska is taught in some schools and this seems to upset a few parents. The themes of this book includes smoking, drinking and sex, therefore adults are concerned that their kids will be influenced and start smoking, drinking and have sex. I strongly disagree. The fact is, some kids are going to smoke, drink and/or have sex whether they read about it or not. Some kids can read about it, see it on TV, hear it in music and still do none of them (like me). I don't believe you can protect kids through ignorance. Looking for Alaska is loved by many teens and it provides the opportunity for them to talk to their parents and teachers about it. If you really want to protect your kids, it should be done through knowledge, openness and trust.

Smoking, drinking and sex aren't even the themes of this book to begin with. It's about life, death and the things in between - smoking, drinking and sex just happen to be among all of that.

When reading Looking for Alaska, you need to ignore the smoking, drinking and sex (oh and the swearing) and focus on the more important topics. John Green attempts to answer some of the fundamental question of life and death so openly that it makes this book stand out from others within its genre. I've seen reviews by young adults that the book is aimed for which said the book is "profound" and "groundbreaking" for the topics discussed. You're young. You know nothing. God bless. The spiritual topics in this book are explored in every single book, TV series, movies and comics in one way or another. Looking for Alaska just does it at the forefront. It's a great way to introduce the ideas to young adults and is thought provoking for adults. I would stop and think about the ideas throughout the book. How did I feel about life and death as a 16 year old? How is that different now that I'm 27?

Overall

I enjoyed the writing and quirky characters and their shenanigans. I liked the way the fundamental topics were discussed. This is a book aimed at school kids and I would've loved to have read this for school, more than the classics that were aimed at adults that are for some reason forced down the throats of kids. Teaching Looking for Alaska makes far more sense to me than Shakespeare, Austin or Fitzgerald.

Read the book. Teach it in schools. That is all.

Second Hand Book Store Haul

My husband and I went to our local second hand book store yesterday and I got three books.

1. The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

Lilian Jackson Braun

Book 1 of the "Cat Who" series

Published 1966

Plot: James Mackintosh Qwilleran becomes a newsman for The Daily Fluxion. On his first assignment to cover the art beat, he meets an art critic and his Siamese cat, Kao K'o-Kung. The two team up to solve a murder mystery.

First thoughts: If anything happens to the cute kitty, I will be devastated.

2. Compass Murphy

Stephen Potts

Published 2001

Plot: Joshua's father goes whaling to Greenland and his ship never returns. Joshua stows away on the Aurora to look for him.

First thoughts: I have no idea why I bought this book.

 3. Dark Secrets - Legacy of Lies

Elizabeth Chandler

Story 1 of the "Dark Secrets" series

Published 2000

Plot: Megan must stay with her grandmother and cousin Matt that she's never met. This is a story of family secrets and self-discovery.

First thoughts: The cover intrigued me and I also like secrets.

Now which to read first...

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever - book cover review

The phrase "never judge a book by it's cover" should only apply to people, because I'm sure you're meant to judge books by their cover. Think about it, publishing companies have a whole marketing department and graphic artists that spend a lot of time and resources to come up with great covers for their books. It is, after all, the first thing you see with books. The colours, pictures, font, they're all there to draw you in, make you pick up the book, make you read it, get drawn in, and ultimately spend your money on it.

I believe, like with all art, book covers should be modern, stick to the times. And I think that's what they did with the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books by Stephen R. Donaldson. It's one of my all time favourite series and I'm half way through the final book at the moment. Through the years, I've seen many covers for the first trilogy. I found most (if not all) of them online, shown below. I only included covers of the first book, Lord Foul's Bane, for comparison.

The blue one in the middle is the copy I own, and is also my favourite. The covers aren't in particular order, but you can see how much it's changed since the book was first published in 1977 (first edition cover is second row on the left).

When the first trilogy was published with new, modern cover art back in 2004, I was excited. It was probably done to coincide with the final tetralogy that came out in the same year.

The colours are nice. They're clean and sleek. But compared to the previous covers, it's definitely minimal. I believe that fantasy books should have more to the cover though, like characters, setting, magical creatures, castles, what have you, just to help with imagining the world. The fantasy genre as a whole is so surreal that I think readers need a little help. That's why fantasy books tend to have a map, right? So yes, these new covers are quite bland.

I also believe that book covers should suit the content of the story. With themes like leprosy, war, violation, power, dilemmas and destruction, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is most definitely not for children. To appeal to the adult readers, I think you would want to avoid the pretty pictures of horses.

But I hate these covers. They annoy me to no end. Someone at the publishing company Del Ray really dropped the ball on this. I cannot believe that these covers were made, approved, then printed. If you've read the series, or know anything about it, you would know that the ring should be white gold. The covers of this edition is so generic, like the artist got a brief that said "make a minimal cover with a ring on it" and that's it. Hmmm, a ring of power, oh I know, Lord of the Rings. There is no one person to blame for this. Books go through many hands, like editing, proofreading, marketing, more editing... But not one person said "Hey, shouldn't this ring be white?" When such a fundamental and crucial mistake is made like this, and it gets published, it makes me wonder how good Del Ray is as a company.

Although maybe they did realise but thought maybe no one would notice.

Words, oh so many words

For me, the perfect end to a day begins with a good book. To delve into a new world, while a kitty purrs and the hamster runs in his wheel and my husband is in another world...

But what is a good book? Well, that depends, doesn't it?

Prepare yourself for reviews, hauls, trips to bookstores and so much more, because there's so much in the world or words to get through.