STACKED

books

Double Take, Part XVIII

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While some of us take time to celebrate the holidays (…and some of us are in the midst of moving!), here’s a double take for your enjoyment. We promise a blitz of very exciting posts coming the start of the year, including a great giveaway.

Toy Monster: The Big Bad World of MATTEL by Jerry Oppenheimer was published by Wiley in February of 2009. We get a nice close up of Barbie’s eyes.

My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter was published by Sandpiper in April 2009. This time we get all of Barbie’s face (with special emphasis on her eyes, of course).

I like both of them for different reasons. I feel like both fit their books very well, as the first looks like a book ready to make some big disclosures, and the second one fits because, well, it’s nice to not have an image of a real person’s supposed big nose (thereby setting an artificial standard).

Do you prefer one over the other?

Double Take, Part XVII

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What I like about this double take is how complimentary the two books would be!

Ending Violence in Teen Dating Relationships by Al Miles is a non-fiction title published by Augsburg Books in April 2005.

Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles — the paperback edition — was published in April 2007 by Flux. Although this isn’t a book about teen dating violence, I think that readers of this title might also be interested readers in the other one (and vice versa).

It’s the same stock image, just cropped differently and with a lighter treatment. When I stumbled across the first book, I instantly identified it as the same image on Elkeles’s title. In both cases, I think the cover is a perfect fit, and I love the wider focus on Leaving Paradise.

What do you think? I actually think the double take here is kind of a cool one.

Where have all the fat girls gone?

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I’ve got a beef with young adult fiction right now, and it’s this — for all we try to do to promote body acceptance, we sure don’t like to show that in our covers. When was the last time you saw a fat girl (or boy – I’m inclusive here) being portrayed in a realistic manner on a cover? I’m loose in defining realistic, too. I just don’t want them being the villain or being the one belittled. Think about all of the covers you see: they’re ALL thin. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. Even if the book doesn’t talk about the weight or shape of a character, the cover makes him/her thin.

Let me give you a little illustration. We can thank the hard-working ALA “Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults” committee for compiling a list of books about body acceptance. I have taken that list and generated a gallery of those covers. For simplicity’s sake and for the sake of not needing to be politically correct here, I am using the term “fat.”

Tell me the trend you see:

Food. There is no fat girl here. The girl in the story is fat.

A rear shot of a boy with his shirt puffed out. We don’t know if he’s fat or not because we don’t see a whole body.

More food and still no fat girl.

Oh, a warning not to eat food. Still no fat girl.

I don’t even know what to say. To be fair, this is an older book with a cover that reflects the art trends of that time. But really? She looks goofy and she’s eating a cookie. You don’t see her body. She’s a floating head. And the skeleton below? Eesh.

2/11/10 Edit: I compiled this post not having read all of these titles. The ones I didn’t read, I tried to glean a sense of the theme from the ALA list. Fat Chance isn’t in the same league as the other titles on this list, but I think that there’s still something to be said for this cover and the EATING aspect. Plus, she has a fat face.

Isn’t this a book where she’s PROUD of being who she is? We get shoes and part of her legs. We don’t know she’s fat.

She’s got a pretty face, but we don’t see that. We see a scale and her feet. Where’s her pretty face and “atrocious body?” I know that the pretty face is meant as something else, but taken in context with the cover, it gives a different impression.

When I pulled this one up, I got excited because we see a fat body! There’s no face though, and quite frankly, she looks goofy and vilified, doesn’t she? Her stance is defensive and unapproachable while the skinny girl next to her is jovial and approachable.

Ahh, we get not only food on this one, but a skinny girl. This is about plus sized modeling and yet, there’s nothing to show that off.

This one, we get a face (which is thin) and a girl in black to cover her “fat.” I don’t think she’s fat at all.

We’re almost there now, except I’d hardly call this fat, either. And we see only her stomach that she’s pinching to make a “fat roll.” Where’s her face? How come we don’t get a full body shot so we can determine she’s really and truly fat?

This butt is curvy — also known as NORMAL. I like this cover, but again, it’s a part of a body rather than a whole person.

Apparently, Lara is so large they couldn’t bear putting an image of a person on the cover. It’s just a shirt dress floating in the wind (thin as air, right?).

I know she’s fat in this one, too, but why isn’t she there? I think that’s a book or something, but regardless, it’s a perfect hour glass shape.

We want good role models for girls to love who they are, but what do we see on every cover? Thin girls or fat girls looking goofy. Why can’t fat girls (and boys!) be on covers like their thin counterparts?

I’m sure you can’t forget the Liar controversy, where the cover featured a white girl when the main character was clearly not white. Why is it we put thin on the cover when the character isn’t (and in some cases is JUST ALRIGHT WITH THAT?).

So I want you to tell me: why can’t we do this? Can you find me a cover with a fat girl who is — how do I say this — a normal, every day person? We know our world isn’t full of perfect bodies and we know we want people to come to love who they are, but if we can’t see it in the world (especially in books that are meant to highlight these said issues) how can we make people believe they are ok?

Edit 9/30/11: This post has generated a lot of discussion recently, and I wanted to lead you to a few follow up posts I’ve written on this subject here and here.

Pretty Dead, by Francesca Lia Block

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Pretty Dead was my first Francesca Lia Block, and I was completely blown away by the way she writes. The beautiful words are what make this book worth reading. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Block could write about grass growing and I would be entranced.

Luckily for us, Block chose not to write about her front lawn and instead focused her attentions on the unceasingly popular theme of vampires. Charlotte Emerson is a vampire who lives in modern day Los Angeles. Like most vampires in teen literature, she’s anguished. She chose to become a vampire after the death of her twin brother, Charles, and she’s since realized that this was a mistake. She broke it off long ago with her maker and lover, William, but he’s returned to haunt her. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s friend Emily has died in an apparent suicide and Charlotte is growing ever closer to Emily’s boyfriend, Jared. To top it all off, Charlotte has begun to realize that her perfectly immortal body is going through some very mortal changes.

Many of the people whose reviews I have read of Pretty Dead seem to be disappointed with the book. Much of the criticism I’ve read stems from the fact that Pretty Dead is about vampires, and vampires are just oh so in with the teens nowadays. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know this is true, but what drew me to the book was the twist Block put on the traditional vampire myth – Charlotte the vampire is slowly becoming human. The story explores why and how this might be happening. Beyond that, Pretty Dead also explores the intense loneliness and isolation that accompanies immortality. Charlotte’s life is initially glamorous, especially to her human friends Emily and Jared, but Block forces us to see that such an eternal life is far from desirable. This is very different from the vampire books out there that romanticize the immortal life (while simultaneously pretending to demonize it).

Kelly also pointed out to me that the book seems pretty anti-feminist, with Charlotte’s motivations stemming mostly from a desire to please the men in her life. I can see where people might make this argument, since much of what Charlotte does is determined by her feelings for her brother or her ex-lover, but I think the addition of Emily provides a more complex female relationship that also significantly influences Charlotte’s actions. Long after I finished the book and had figured out Charlotte’s relationships with the men, I was left pondering the meaning behind her relationship with Emily.

Pretty Dead was a great introduction to Francesca Lia Block. It’s a short novel on a popular theme and has given me a taste of the wondrous things Block can do with words. I really cannot say enough about Block’s talent with the English language. In my dreams where I am a published author, I write with the beauty, power, and intensity of Francesca Lia Block. I will definitely be picking up her other books.

One last note: I really really dislike the cover. Aside from the fact that it seems like a blatant ripoff of the True Blood poster, it does not evoke the mood that Block’s words do. The cover makes the story seem salacious, soapy, gossipy. Perhaps this is a good thing for teens who are already hooked on anything vampire, but for those readers looking for something different from the usual vampire story, the cover is not going to make them pick this one up. That’s too bad, because the prose is just so, so achingly beautiful.

Double Take, Part XVI

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The last post was wordy, so this one’s just a double take. If you like these posts, you’re in luck, as I’ve got a wealth stocked up right now! In this edition, we’ve got a book that’s been out for a couple of years and one that will be coming out.

Safe by Susan Shaw was published in October 2007 by Dutton. I love the orange against the black.

Lifted by Wendy Toliver isn’t out yet but will be published by Simon Pulse in June 2010. Obviously the cropping’s different, but it’s the same stock image. Although I think it works as well as it does for Safe, there’s a part of me hoping this gets changed. Having the same exact cover, along with a very similar use of location for title will get so confusing for not only readers but those who serve them.

Do you think one’s better than the other?

Oh, one of our readers, Terry, pointed out this one, too:

Everything is Fine by Ann Dee Ellis was published March 2009 by Little Brown. It’s a little too psychedelic for my tastes….