Over the last five years, Henry Sene Yee’s vivid, playful cover design for the paperback edition of Tom Perrotta’s 2004 novel Little Children has clearly inspired many lawn-care-obsessed copycats, including this year’s dust jackets for Secrets to Happiness and Perfect Life. Consider some of the evidence…
The trend seems to have gotten so out of hand that we imagine publishers might soon extend the idea to their backlist titles, for classics both recent and not so recent. How long before we see covers like these on the shelves? (Three clicks for EW designer Jennifer Laga for creating these.)
That “To Kill A Mockingbird” is genius!!
I have both Little Children and Aloft, and for years I have thought the covers were similar. I am glad that I’m not the only one. Also, the Leaves of Grass cover is funny.
I haven’t read Anna Karenina since high school, but I distinctly remember a long descriptive passage about Levin scythe-cutting the grass. How apropos!
i actually laughed out loud at work from this…
while editing a book about poverty.
thanks ew!
Here is another: http://unibooks.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/tsiolkas-the-slap1.jpg
(‘The Slap’ won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize)
In March 2004, Ivan R. Dee published “The Pitch That Killed,” with a cover design using a grass background (by Robert McCamant).
http://www.ivanrdee.com/Catalog/LargeImage.shtml
I tughoht finding this would be so arduous but it’s a breeze!