Cover Stories / Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

I've been thinking about starting a regular feature like this for awhile, but until now summer reading has taken all my energy!  I'm showing a bit of my inner nerd here, but I love cover art.  All the choices the artists and designers make while designing a book cover affect the way we look at and think about a particular book before we even crack open the pages.  I hate to admit it, but I don't always follow the "don't judge a book by its cover" rule - and especially with young readers (or reluctant readers!), the cover has to grab their attention for them to even bother picking a book up off the shelf.  The cover art of a book is also often the only graphic representation of the story that we readers see except the pictures we form of the characters and setting in our own minds.  With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to compare various covers of children's and young adult novels...to start with, I chose a well-loved and read story with many different cover variations: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling!

English edition; Scholastic Press // English edition (UK); Boomsbury Publishing

On the left is the U.S. edition with artwork by Mary GrandPre - the cover I am most familiar with - and after exploring, probably my favorite!  I love the way the artist depicted a memorable moment from the story while still tying in images and motifs from the story as a whole (the unicorn, the three-headed dog, Hogwarts caste, the Forbidden Forest).  On the right is the U.K. edition; I like that Harry's first journey on the Hogwarts Express is the moment the artist chose here, illustrating the reader's entry into a new magical world for the first time right along with Harry.  The one thing that I don't like as much with this cover is the fact that Harry looks much older than 11 - the birthday he celebrates just before starting school at Hogwarts.

Czech edition; Albatros // French edition; Gallimard Juenesse

Here are 2 foreign language editions - Czech on the left and French on the right.  Isn't it fun to see a familiar title in a completely different language?  These covers feature artwork that are both a bit more abstract than the English editions.  I love the exaggerated faces in the Czech cover - I think the Hogwarts professors are the figures around the table - and is that Snape with the long nose and bulgy eyes??  Haha!  I also love Hermione's face in the French cover with her self-satisfied expression, as if she's sighing to herself, "why am I the only one who's read Hogwarts: A History?".

French edition; Contemporary French Fiction // Signature edition (UK); Bloomsbury Publishing

And then the covers get even more abstract with these later French & English editions.  These covers both seem a bit more focused on adult & teen readers with the text being the focus instead of detailed illustrations of characters and settings.  I actually really like the type used for the "Harry Potter" text in both of these titles; the one used on the left almost has a twig or branch-like feel to it, nicely echoing the green branches that border the text.  The type on the right looks as if it was written with a quill or antique ink well pen (Harry & his classmates use quills!) which fits well with the feel of the story.

I think it's so interesting seeing all these covers next to each other! Having already read the story, its much easier to "read" the covers to see how well it reflects (or doesn't reflect!) the story.  But what if you've never read the story?  Would any of these covers discourage you from picking it up or would they intrigue you?  I don't think either of the covers on the bottom would get checked out much in the Children's Room (maybe the one on the left)...but if I saw them myself in a bookstore or on the shelf at the library I'd probably pick them up to at least read the book jacket.  What do you think?

And in case this wan't enough Harry Potter cover art for you, Scholastic just revealed the last design for the 15th anniversary covers created by Kazu Kibuishi - they are gorgeous! Below is the first one and you can view the rest at Scholastic's website.

15th Anniversary Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone cover; artwork by Kabu Kibuishi

Anyway, if you made to end of this post, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this new, hopefully semi-regular feature!