Books I could Eat for Breakfast... LOSER

This book is LOSER by American author Jerry Spinelli. It’s lovely in every single way.

The cover is plain blue with a matt finish and the figure depicted in the centre in white (it has a spot UV varnish on the line). Both the title and the author’s name are in a recessive shade of blue. The design is all about the crazy little dude in the middle. And that’s exactly what the book is about: a crazy little dude called Donald Zinkoff.

The thing is, I’m not sure I should really be shouting too much about the design of this HarperCollins edition when all credit should really go to Orchard who published STARGIRL with a similarly bold design and, in fact, did it first (did they? I'm not sure what the US cover was... feel free to correct me on this, if you're in the know). The simplicity of both covers reflects the simplicity of the stories contained within. Both are about outsiders, people (children) who couldn’t conform if they tried and who stand out... like, erm, white figures on a plain background.

Loser is my personal favourite because of Donald, someone ignorant of his own innocence in a way Stargirl isn’t. Donald really is a loser, the kind of child even the weak would pick on. But there’s something comforting in true innocence; you can’t be hurt by others’ cynicism; your love for life is straightforward and unashamed; even taunts can pass you by if you really are innocent through and through because you won’t see the intended slight.

I find something very liberating in thinking about innocence. I’m jaded adult these days, but this book had me yelling “I can spell tintinnabulation!” (and then failing miserably) for days. If you read it, I reckon you’ll be doing the same.

Books I Could Eat for Breakfast

This book was bought for its cover, and what a cover it is. I’ve tried to give you a sense of its full awesomeness in this photo. (I’m not sure I’m really doing it justice, but hey ho.) You can see that the idea of the Kinder-surprise-style model assembly kit is carried right around the book from front, around the spine and even around the barcode. I love a fully designed cover. It gives me goosebumps. This book was bought as a present by someone else, so imagine the joy when I found out it was a Nick Stearn creation – he who designed Clash and The Deeping Secrets.

Anyhoo, design-drooling aside, Neal Shusterman's Unwind (Simon & Schuster) is a gem. It examines the idea of children being ‘unwound’ for their body parts – harvested for their organs if their parents sign them off before they’re eighteen. It’s written in the third person present tense and you’re kept at a certain distance by the narrative moving between three characters, but this allows for the fringe characters to gain a certain level of importance. In doing so the reader’s mind is left turning in and around and about, questioning fundamental issues about identity, value and medical science.

I rarely wish a book was longer, but this book... ah. It’s something else.

It's neck and neck on the SONG QUEST cover vote...

Right - because it's not always easy for people to vote on Facebook, we've had votes coming in all over the shop for the fabulous SONG QUEST cover vote. Voting closes tomorrow at 6pm, so I thought I'd collate the votes so far here in an actual graph (fancypants aren't I?)

As you can see, the paler cover is just starting to edge away with it (ahead by only 7 votes - eek) so if you take one look at the pale one and think NOOOOOOOO! Well then, you'd better place a vote for the black, hadn't you? Or maybe you want to seal the deal for the paler one...

We want as many people as possible to vote on this and since VOTING CLOSES TOMORROW please pass on the message to as many people as you can...

Click the link here, click on your preferred cover and press the 'Like' button and feel free to comment on your choice as it's been very interesting hearing the reasons behind your votes.

Thank you one an all for participating!

Quest for the best

Hello. Why don’t you mosey on over to The Bookette’s blog and check out this rather amazing cover reveal where we show you not one but TWO possible covers for Song Quest by Katherine Roberts – winner of the inaugural Branford Boase award for new fiction in 2000 and soon to be published by Catnip thanks to Becky the Bookette who campaigned for its revival. (You can see her post about why here.)

Why two covers? You ask. Well, because we respect your opinion and we’d like you to choose your favourite by going to our facebook page and ‘Liking’ the cover you think looks the best. The winner of the online vote, which runs from 9^th September until 6pm Friday 16^th September, will be the cover that we print for the book.

We’re kinda making publishing history here, so why don’t you too? Go on, you know you want to…

Click here to vote. Yeah! Do it!