Is there a history of these kinds of cutaway illustrations on New Yorker covers? There was another Sánchez-Moral collaboration “Ready to Soar” a couple of years ago, and Luci Gutiérrez’s “Inside Story” cover for the ‘Cartoons & Puzzles’ issue last December. Then there is the New Yorkeresque poster for Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch by illustrator Javi Aznarez. Where did the inspiration for that come from?
Happy New Year! I hope you’re keeping safe and well.
I just re-read the introduction to my 2024 YA post and it says pretty much everything I was going to say about young adult covers this time around too, which is a bit annoying! There are still plenty of great covers this year, but trends sometimes move slowly, and it does make me worry that these posts are getting a little stale and predictable.
As with the previous couple of years, almost all of my 2025 selections are illustrated. Looking at original cover art and discovering new illustrators is definitely one of the joys of collating these post. It does make me wonder though, if the illustrations are thing, should I broaden the scope of the posts to include other categories to freshen things up?
I can see both sides.
YA cover designers and illustrators do not get a lot of attention despite all the cover reveals and special deluxe editions (not to mention book sales). I have been doing YA specific lists because no one else has been.
That said, the lines between categories and age-groups are blurred. I actually had to delete a couple of covers from this post because they were for SFF novels that were not strictly YA. I couldn’t tell from the covers. I only realized when I looked up the details. It happened last year too. Including other age groups would allow me to include illustrated science fiction, fantasy, and romance covers that also tend to get overlooked outside of their fan communities. But it would probably mean a bit less YA.
What to do?
Thanks again for all your support over the past year. I hope your still enjoying the posts, but please let me know if you have thoughts or additional design credits. I’d love to hear from you.
Beasts by Ingvild Bjerkeland, translated by Rosie Hedger; design by John Gall (Levine Querido / April 2025)
Before I realized that Beasts was actually a young adult novel, I included this in my round-up of last year’s adult covers. Now that I know that it’s a book for teens, I think it’s only appropriate to include here too in its proper context. It’s a great cover that stands out in both lists.
You’ve Found Oliver by Dustin Thao; design by Theresa Evangelista; illustration by Zipcy (Dutton BYR / September 2025)
I believe this is third Dustin Thao novel with a cover illustration by Zipcy, although I think the previous two were designed by Kerri Resnick for Wednesday Books.
The cover of the New Yorker‘s recent Cartoons & Puzzles issue by Luci Gutiérrez feels like an appropriate post to end the year on as I’ve basically been doing anything but work for the last couple of weeks.
Hopefully I will have a YA covers post for you in the next couple of weeks, but until then, Happy New Year!
I don’t post a lot of picture books here, but seeing how it’s spooky season, I thought I would mention The Slightly Spooky Tale of Fox and Mole by Swedish illustrator Cecilia Heikkilä, published by Floris Books, which just landed on my desk at work. It’s an appropriately autumnal and windswept story about a dark and scuffling monster that emerges from the moor after Mole takes his friendship with his neighbour Fox for granted. As you can see below, the illustrations are wonderful and although things get a little scary in the middle, it all works out in the end.
Hey. I hope you’re keeping safe and well. I’m posting this late on the last day of the month, but hopefully it was worth waiting for.
I will let you get to the covers posthaste, but before I go, today (September 30th) is also Orange Shirt Day and National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, so I would like take a moment to acknowledge and remember the survivors of residential schools, their families and the kids who didn’t come home. <3
This is holographic foil just in case it’s not obvious from the above (and if someone at Head of Zeus / Bloomsbury is reading and wants to fire me a better cover image that would be great!)
With this and the cover of The Dilemmas of Working Women designed by Sarah Kellogg (featured last month), we may have a new sub-genre of ‘well dressed and distressed’. Are there other examples?
Possibly a different kind of distress, the UK edition of Discontent, published last month by Harvill Secker, was designed by Kris Potter using a photograph by Laurent Tixador.
Dogs by C. Mallon; design by Jaya Miceli (Scribner / August 2025)
Is the “blob cut-out” a thing? I kind of thought it was but then I couldn’t think of any other examples except maybe this Paul Sahre / Erik Carter cover for The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson from a few years ago, which is more of a collage really. Are they any other examples?
I like these bright and bold covers by Stephen Smith, AKA Neasden Control Centre, for the new Vintage Classics editions of Julio Cortázar a lot. It feels like an inspired match of illustrator to author. The art direction is by Suzanne Dean of course.
You will have to wait for the hardcover of Divertimento (translated into English for the first time by Harry Morales) because it doesn’t go on sale until May 2026, but the paperback reissues came out last month in the UK.
Divertimentoby Julio Cortázar, translated by Harry Morales (Vintage Classics / May 2026) Bestiary: The Selected Stories of Julio Cortázar by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025) Final Exam by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)The Winnersby Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)62: A Model Kit by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)A Manual for Manuel by Julio Cortázar (Vintage Classics / August 2025)
Happy New Year! I hope you’re keeping safe and well. The first post of the year is the now customary look back at the previous year’s Young Adult covers. All the covers on this year’s list are illustrated (which was almost, but not quite, the case last year too). I love illustration — it’s part of the reason why I still keep doing these posts! — so it’s possible that this just reflects my personal preferences, but almost all the YA covers I saw this year were illustrated. There were very few photographic or type/letter-only covers.
I compile this list a little differently to my adult list. It’s mostly done over a few weeks at the end of the year rather than compiled across the year as a whole. I’m sure this skews my selections too. I’m probably overly reliant on cover reveal posts and best of the year lists. I think this probably means that the big American publishers are over-represented, which is less than ideal. I suspect they’re dominant in the category anyway, but I’m sure I am missing some interesting covers from independent and international publishers all the same.
The Horror and Fantasy seem to be having a moment. The line between YA and adult covers seems very blurred in both genres. I had to double-check a number to titles to confirm where they belonged. It happened often enough for me to think it was intentional, which probably speaks to who is reading YA and what they are looking for. It is also possible that I am over-indexing both genres here because they seem more mature and they appeal to me personally. I am also less of a fan of the illustration styles popular for the romance genres at the moment, so I think it’s fair to say they are under-represented on the list. I am very aware that I am not the target audience, so I’m not sure it is something that should overly worry art directors (although apologies if you’re disappointed not to see more of your covers on the list!). Still, it might be nice to see some new / different approaches to Romance — and all genres, frankly — going forward.
And with that, I wish you all the best for 2025, and I hope you enjoy the post!
I think this is my favourite cover from the series thus far, but the covers of the original Clown in a Cornfield from 2020, and the second book Frendo Livesfrom 2022, are also very creepy.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi; design Richard Deas (Henry Holt / March 2018)Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi; design by Richard Deas, Mallory Grigg, and Kathleen Breitenfeld; art by Sarah Jones (Henry Holt / December 2019)
The Silence of Bones by June Hur; design by Katie Klimowicz; art by Kasiq Jungwoo (Feiwel & Friends / April 2020)The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur; illustration Pedro Tapa (Feiwel & Friends / April 2021)
I missed the cover of The Family Fortuna by Lindsay Eagar last year, but it’s also delightfully creepy. The art is by Elena Masci, and I believe the designer is Matt Roeser.
This is actually the paperback of the first title in series. The new cover matches the latest book, released in July, The Mirror of Beasts.
Silver in the Bone by Alexandra Bracken; design Liz Dresner; art Tomasz Majewski (Ember / May 2024)The Mirror of Beasts by Alexandra Bracken; design Liz Dresner; art Tomasz Majewski (Alfred A. Knopf BYR / July 2024)
I was sure I had included the covers forThe Dead and the Dark and Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould illustrated by Peter Strain in previous lists, but apparently I hadn’t. They’re really nice:
I wonder what it is like to live in uninteresting — boring, even — times? It must be nice. While I continue to ponder that, here are this month’s book covers….
If I was good at blogging I would have posted this last month when the book was actually published and before the finals of Euros and Copa America, but here we are. Better late than never I guess, and politics never goes out of sport however much some people pretend they are unconnected. (I’m still thinking about doing a post of covers from books about sport, but haven’t got any further than that. Again, if I was actually smart and organized, I would have had it done in time for the Olympics. Cover suggestions still welcome by the way!).
Anyway… The author’s surname and the book’s subtitle were actually printed on to the shirt for the cover and Steve made or bought actual buttons to decorate it. He kindly sent over these shots of the work in progress…
(If anyone in the UK can tell me who designed the red and green cover of Liars for Pan Macmillan — and send me a hi-res cover image! — I would to love to include it next month’s list when it’s released)
The cover of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s previous novel Fleishman is in Trouble was designed by Kelly Blair. I feel like these work together despite being quite different? Maybe it’s as simple as the combination of really big type for the title and handwriting of “a novel”?
Neu Klang by Christoph Dallach; design by Jack Smyth (Faber & Faber / May 2024)
