Can You Tell a Book by its Cover?

The Mukilteo Library's Teen Advisory Board has been a Teens' Top Ten review group for almost two years and in that time the teens have reviewed over 700 books for publishers. Unexpectedly, one of the most interesting questions on the review form turned out to be "What did you like or not like about the cover?" I had no idea readers were so passionate about the covers! One girl said the cover of a book was so suggestive that she had to cover it with brown paper. Two teens returned a zombie book because the cover was so scary they couldn't look at it for more than a couple of minutes. Many of the girls said they never wanted to see another book with either a girl's face staring at them or a girl's torso.

What do they like? Covers that tell you something about the book, but don't give away the whole plot. Covers that suggest the time period or genre without looking like every other book set in that time period or written in that genre. Covers that look like these--25 of the most wonderful book covers of the year. Is it a coincidence that we thought these were great books as well as great covers? Probably not. This is my favorite from the list...what's yours?