My discomfort with this new edition lies not in the decision to change the cover image, but with my worry that the new art does not accurately represent the story to a new generation of readers. If I were unfamiliar with the plot—about newly knighted Alanna’s journey to Tortall’s desert and her capture and acceptance by the Bloody Hawk tribe—I would guess from the new cover that it‘s about a contemporary teenage girl who has a magic pendant and is caught in a love triangle a lá Twilight.

Looking at this edition reminds me of some of my other favorite books that have been reissued with new covers, some of which I’ve grown to appreciate (the 2007 edition of Natalie Babbitt’s The Search for Delicious)

and some of which I have not (any post-Trina Schart Hyman editions of Patricia C. Wrede’s The Enchanted Forest Chronicles).

Which original cover art do you think shouldn’t be tampered with? Which new covers are welcome updates?

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But in the meantime, have a look at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s reissues of Paul Galdone’s Three Little Kittens, The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, and The Little Red Hen. Originally published by Clarion in the 1970s and 80s, the four books (more will follow later in the year) are now available in a uniform paper-over-board edition at the nice price of $8.99 each. Galdone was a refreshingly modest illustrator: his retellings are straightforward and his unassumingly loose-lined, color-separated pictures (Lolly says) provide just enough embellishment, as when the lazy cat in Little Red Hen lolls on the couch, dreaming of a tin of sardines. And oh, the white space! Plenty of it on the page gives the stories all the room they need to do their stuff.

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The “trilogy plus one” is receiving a full redesign (in hardcover, no less) by publisher Simon Pulse, from the covers to trim size and page design. While the new jacket for Extras does pay homage to the original, the new Uglies cover with its haunting covered face bears a closer resemblance to the opening credits of the (adult) TV show Dexter than it does to the original cover. The new Pretties cover reminds me of another grown-up show, Nip/Tuck, making me wonder if the makeovers are an attempt to market the books to an older audience. Though the new covers don’t appeal to me personally, I’ve seen plenty of positive buzz about them online from adult bloggers.

I feel these remakes lack the pizzazz of the original books: their smaller size, mysterious teenaged faces, and eye-catching spines. And while the images on the new covers are startling (as is the use of sterile white), they just don’t do justice to the uniqueness of Westerfeld’s dystopian world. Ironically, the new versions look like New Pretty Town–style extreme makeovers of the originals—sexed-up and stripped down. I’m the first to admit I can be averse to change, but in this case, change seems unnecessary and a little compromising. What do you think?

The post Making Over Uglies appeared first on The Horn Book.

When Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me won the Newbery Medal in 2010, many critics and readers traced its lineage back not only to the 1963 winner A Wrinkle in Time but also to The Westing Game, a puzzle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a coming-of-age novel, which won in 1979. Now Dutton has brought back into print Raskin’s three remaining novels: Figgs & Phantoms (1974, and a Newbery Honor Book), The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) (1971), and The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues (1975).

All of them welcome the reader in as a participant in solving the mystery or completing the quest; all of them speak to both head and heart (especially Figgs & Phantoms, one of the most poignant explorations of grief I’ve ever read). They are smart books, but they don’t exclude anybody; they’re for all kids.

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Luckily for me and other Virginia Hamilton fans, Open Road Integrated Mediahas just put up seven new ebooks by the Newbery and Coretta Scott King award (and three-time Boston Globe–Horn Book award) winner. The ebook versions of Dies Drear and novels M.C. Higgins, the Great, Cousins, Anthony Burns, Zeely, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, and The Planet of Junior Brown feature new covers and biographical info. Open Road has a great mini-documentary about Hamilton on their website. Be sure to also check out author Pam Muñoz Ryan’s touching “Letter to Virginia Hamilton,” written for Ryan’s Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Multicultural Literature acceptance speech last spring. While the release of these new ebooks is timely for Black History Month, I hope that recognition of black history—and the incredible legacy of Virginia Hamilton—is a year-round celebration.

The post Celebrating Virginia Hamilton appeared first on The Horn Book.

In addition to Everywhere Babies, send-a-stories are available for Joanne Ryder and Melissa Sweet’s Won’t You Be My Kissaroo?, Debi Gliori’s No Matter What, and my perennial Valentine’s favorite, Sandol Stoddard Warburg and Jacqueline Chwast’s endearingly bizarre I Like You. Sure beats a boring drugstore Mother’s Day or new baby card!

I never manage to get it together in time to send Christmas cards, but maybe I can get I Like You in the mail to friends by Valentine’s Day—if I start now.

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With its allusive poetic style, His Own Where is the more lastingly radical of the two books, where I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip is more of a landmark, its influential place in the YA canon acknowledged by the three essays, all worth reading, appended to the Flux edition. Both books remind us that the big business of contemporary YA publishing began more than forty years ago with a very brave start.

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