"Everything old is new again"

Recent reissued book covers and current trends.

Using the Book Cover

Newbery Books from the 1960s through the 1970s

My original proposal for this project was to examine the Newbery Award-winning books from 1960-1979 and compare the orignial covers to the reissued covers of the same books today. Some books were reissued with the same cover, while others had dramatically different illustrations. I want to focus on the changing covers -- noting the changes, and speculating reasons for reissuing a different cover.

Eigth Grade Study to see how students select books
A study conducted in 1992 of 25 eighth graders found that (similar to another study conducted with college students) the "adolescent readers were able to draw important clues from BOB [back of book] summaries, titles and cover illustrations. With this information, they accurately predicted whether or not they would like to read their respective [assigned] books." The study explained that "all of the students began the prediction process by first reading titles, looking at illustrations, and then turning to the BOB summaries for additional information, clarification, and assistance."
From "Would I like to read this book?: Eighth graders' use of book cover clues to help choose recreational reading" Steven D. Reinhart; Jeanne M. Gerlach; Diana L. Wisell; William A. Welker Reading Research and Instruction 37 no4 263-80 Summ '98

Book Design classroom unit
This article begins by stating important aspects of book design elements: they can "give new life to a well-known text...serve as invitations to readers as they select a book...help children focus on important story elements..." but "the most effective book design serves to integrate the whole."Observing a clss of 2nd-graders designing their own covers (jackets) for already-existing books or for their own retelling, the authors explained that this activity (studying book design elements and allowing students to create their own covers) "can foster an understanding not only of how visual and verbal elements interrelate, but also of the comprehension-composition connection. ...children can come to understand the functions of book design elements and then incorporate them into their written retellings of stories and their own compositions"
From "BOOK DESIGN ELEMENTS: Integrating the Whole"Jeanne McLain Harms and Lucille J. Lettow Childhood Education 75 no1 17-24 Fall '98

General Assumptions

1. A book cover sets up expectations about the story, characters and genre.
2. Reissued book covers (that differ from the original cover) show what publishers think will appeal to new readers.
3. The book cover is a marketing tool and "a poster for the book."
4. The specific titles that publishers decide to reissue has significance.

Reissued Children's Book Covers

VIEWPOINT 1: Children as a marketing target.
In an article that appeared in The Horn Book Magazine in 2000, Stephen Roxburgh addresses the changing format of the book as well as the changing reader. He writes, Today our culture, fixated on the potential of the so-called global economy, has identified children as an enormous market...My concern is with the twenty-first century's few-holds-barred application of mass marketing and merchandising techniques. Even as our society champions children and defends their rights, we are reaching into ther minds and pockets by whatever means possible, barraging them with powerful, exploitative, sophisticated media assaults, treating them as mature, fiscally responsible adults."Trilobites, Palm Pilots, and Vampires: Publishing Chidlren's Books in the Twenty-first Century."

Horn Book Magazine, Nov 2000 v76 i6 p653


VIEWPOINT 2: Helping children become aware consumers.
In the Congressional Testimony on Media Violence Henry Jenkins promotes teaching children and young adults "media literacy." He states,Our students need to learn how to process and evaluate those materials and reach their own judgements about what is valuable and what isn't in the array of media entering their lives.Although Jenkins focuses primarily on TV, movies, video games and the Internet, his ideas about helping children and young adults to be more critical of everything presented to them can be applied to the book market as well.

Henry Jenkins--Testimony presented before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Washington, D.C., May 4, 1999 http://www.svdltd.com/sells/cpa/speeches/jenkinstxt.htm