I had been worried about Jerry Craft's New Kid (2019), a graphic novel chronicling seventh grader Jordan Banks's first year in a predominately white private school. Brilliant in every way, I had felt like the book wasn't getting the attention it deserved. And so, it was with joy that I heard it won the 2020 Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Medal. Both awards are well-deserved, for New Kid is beautifully crafted (pun intended) and addresses serious topics with humanity and humor. Exploring the concept of identity--the factors that influence, change, and/or define it--my seventh graders were primed to fall in love with New Kid , too, once I recommended it for independent reading. By the time they finished the first chapter, my students were sold on the novel. This is because Jordan's personality and family were quickly and clearly established and presented in ways that my kids could relate. Jordan Banks is your regular, seventh grade boy trying to find his p
Great book design can be said to achieve two things: they announce and brand themselves. Some become Jurassic Park level iconic, with the book's cover art replicated in their paperback and international editions, and even movie posters--if the book is successful enough to capture Hollywood's attention. They're the type of covers that you can't imagine being anything other than what they are, though I have liked another cover of Educated (2018) that I think also captures the essence of the story (not the one with a childhood photograph of Westover on a swing). Below are a sampling of favorite book cover designs, along with my reflections of a few of them. I hope that whoever was involved in the design of Shusterman's Arc of the Scythe book series received an award. Everything about those book covers bring joy: the paper on which they're printed, the graphic but simple nature of the image, the typography, the color. Overall those books' cover