Try This Tomorrow: Judging a Book by Its Cover
Literary Hub is one of my favorite bookish websites. They regularly post round-ups of their favorite book covers of the month with brief explanations about their choices-for example-October, September, and August .
These brief reactions make terrific mentors for students to pay attention to and reflect on the covers of the books they are reading. Why not ask students to discuss if the cover played a part in their book selection, whether or not the cover captures the essence of the book, what connections they can make between the cover and the content, how the cover has changed over different editions, etc.? Students can read these round-ups to create a running list of options for commenting on book covers.
Designer Chip Kidd has made a career of trying to make readers judge a book by its cover. This Time photo essay highlights some of his most iconic covers.
So, go ahead and judge a book by its cover and invite your students to do the same.