When a good book is wrapped in a less-than-good jacket, we like to call that an Unfortunate Cover. I was walking by the fiction section in my 3rd and 4th grade school today when I saw this:
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynn Reid Banks
*Shoe heels screeching to a halt*
*Double take*
This is what I like to call “severely dated”. Side note – this might sound odd, but doesn’t it seem like kids on the covers of books published in the 70s and 80s wore a lot of sweaters?
While most libraries have a more modern cover, I’m guessing there’s still a few sporting this early model.
Check out previous Unfortunate Covers:
#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17.
About Travis Jonker
I weeded our copy with that cover a few months ago. There’s something vaguely menacing about it.
It is indeed an odd one in the current day and age. Aside from the sweater thing, it also seems like there was a lot of resting the head in the hand going on in 80s covers.
She came into our book store to sign (more than a dozen years ago, this would have been) and railed against most of the cover choices. Especially the one for One More River which I think still uses one of the two bad covers she showed us. It wasn’t just the bad art but apparently many inaccuracies as well. Fun times.
Thanks for the insider info, Jim. I could see the inaccurate cover issue getting the author steamed.