The Coverflip Debate (though, really, what is there to debate?)

I have a confession to make: I judge books by their covers. I know it’s kind of inherently wrong, but we all do it, don’t we? After all, covers give us that first impression about what kind of story is going to be hidden within a book’s pages. Something with a spaceship on the front: sci fi. Sepia image of barbed wire with silhouette of a soldier: war fiction. Partial body-shot of a woman in soft tones? Chick-lit.

I find cover design and cover conventions endlessly fascinating, but author Maureen Johnson recently got me thinking even deeper about it than I had ever done before. After tweeting, ‘I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, “Please put a non-girly cover on your book so that I can read it – signed, A Guy” ’ Johnson set her followers a challenge: take a popular book, and reimagine what the cover would look like if the book had been written by someone of the opposite gender. The results are not only fascinating, but also quite revealing.

First, though, take a moment to visit your local Waterstones. Wander down the bookshelves, through fiction and teen fiction, and take a look at the covers. What do they say to you? How often is a book written by a female author (particularly in the teen section) given a pink or ‘girly’ cover? What reaction does this illicit from you? What, after all, does ‘girly’ mean?

Johnson (and others) argue that there is a tendency for books by women to be given a female cover, no matter what the subject matter actually is, or even whether or not the protagonist is male or female. Sarah Rees Brennan points out that books by female authors are, more often than not, “Packaged in a way that clearly indicates that they’re a girl – and thus that the work isn’t as good as a guy’s… Books that look like that are girl’s books. Girls’ books aren’t good.”  The perception is that if a book has a girly cover then the words inside are fluffy, light, breezy, when in fact they are just as likely to be anything but. Why are we, and the publishing industry, bowing down to this?

Consider this: John Green’s bestselling The Fault in Our Stars. A book written by a guy, but told by a girl. It actually has a very non-descript cover that doesn’t tell you much about who the people inside are likely to be or what they’re likely to be doing and, as such, is not marketed specifically to boys or to girls, but is (theoretically) equally likely to be picked up by either. But what if John Green was Joanna Green? Most likely result: female author writing a female protagonist, equals female audience, which equals female cover, such as with Jenny Downham’s Before I Die (a book which covers a similar subject to Green’s).

What, then, makes one book a girl’s book, and what makes another book a guy’s book? Is there – or should there be – such a thing? Why does a book featuring a girl and written by a girl have to be marketed exclusively for the domain of girls? Why should it be that boys can’t read books about girls? I’m a girl and I’m perfectly happy to read books about boys and by boys, and I’m sure there are plenty of boys out there equally interested in reading about girls - as highlighted by Maureen Johnson’s tweet. But when they’re put off by overtly girly covers it’s surely a knock back for everyone involved.

The correlation between cover style and content means that because I think I know what kind of book I like to read and what kind of covers are generally used on those kinds of books, I know what sort of covers to look out for. But does this limit my reading choices? Surely putting pink and girly covers on books – covers that put boys off – means that boys are missing out on these great books, their thoughts, ideas and adventures.

Some of the new book covers created by Maureen Johnson’s coverflip challenge are absolutely brilliant, and in some cases (particularly where a female author is reimagined as a male author) much better and more imaginative than the originals, not only proving Johnson’s original point, but also made me interested in books that I hadn't been grabbed by before. After all, cover design is ultimately about getting as many people as possible to buy the book, isn’t it? And when marketing departments choose to stereotype books by female authors as being appropriate only for a female audience - targeting only half their potential audience - aren’t they automatically cutting out a big pile of revenue?

Finally: will the industry sit up and take notice, or will the internetish stir Johnson’s post has caused simply be a flash in the pan? Gender stereotyping shortchanges everyone involved, so why don't we put a stop to it? Either way, all hands down to Johnson for raising (or re-raising) a thought-provoking issue and asking thought-provoking questions. I don’t think any teen (for she is commonly categorised as a teen author – though that’s a matter for a whole other discussion) could go wrong by having her as a role model – whether they are male or female.

Infinite Sky, by C J Flood

Does it begin when her mum leaves, or is it when the gypsies move into the back field? Does it happen because her brother Sam falls in with a bad crowd, because her dad hates the gypsies, or because she makes friends with them? Is it someone’s fault at all, or is it events just spiraling out of control? Either way, Iris is standing in front of the coffin, and she can’t believe he is dead.

Infinite Sky is the story of one devastating summer, a summer filled with new experiences, both good and bad, but also a summer filled with tension and anger. Iris’s mum has left to ‘find herself’, her dad is lonely and drinks too much, her brother, equally lost, is acting out in every way imaginable. The presence of the gypsies only adds to the tension, especially when Iris is caught sneaking off to meet the young boy living with them.

C J Flood has written a powerful coming of age story that subtly touches on lots of both adolescent and adulthood issues, dealing with them in a quietly thoughtful and considered way. The focus here is not the blush of first romance between Iris and Trick, but rather the dynamics of a family in crisis, how when one small, loose thread is pulled, the whole sweater can unravel before your very eyes. There is much here to applaud, adding another choice to the genre of teen issues that Annabel Pitcher, Jenny Downham and Laura Jarratt are becoming known for.

The story flows, following the peaks and troughs of adolescence, building and building, leading us toward the moment when we figure out who is in the coffin Iris introduced us to in the prologue. It’s emotionally tense, made more so by the fact that the malice both leading up to and following this terrible event is so utterly misconstrued, and the refusal of the adults in the picture to listen and understand what Iris is trying to tell them, to make them see. Gripping.

Skin Deep, by Laura Jarratt

Jenna.
It is eight months since the car crash that tore apart Jenna’s village, killed her best friend, and left her face with an angry burn scar. In her mind, she is ugly; she cannot bare to look in the mirror and when she leaves the house it feels like everyone is staring. She misses her friend and doesn’t know how to be herself anymore. And Stephen, the boy responsible, the boy who was driving, is walking around as if nothing happened.

Ryan.
A new town, new people. Again. Ryan is used to upping sticks and moving on: he and his mum are travellers, living on a boat and moving from place to place. When they moor near to Jenna’s house, he and Jenna strike up a friendship that is set to change them both. Used to being looked down upon and judged, Ryan finds in Jenna someone who can see him for the person he truly is. But as their relationship develops, circumstances out of their control seem set to tear them apart.

This was a surprising story that ran deeper than I was expecting. Instead of being a simple teen romance, the plot develops in all sorts of directions - including murder. After the accident, Jenna’s dad set up a campaign group for traffic safety - he wants to bring reckless drivers to justice, but Jenna hates the attention it brings on her, especially when the family becomes a target for harassment on top of everything else. Why won’t he just leave things alone? And Ryan has a knack for attracting trouble too: protecting Jenna’s honour gets him into a fight with Stephen. Can he protect both Jenna and his sick mum, or will he have to sacrifice one for the other?

Skin Deep is a good read and covers several different issues in a calm manner without making a big deal out of them - bullying, sexual harassment, low self esteem, bipolar disease, child carers. This sounds like a fairly grizzly list when written out like that, and could make it seem as if this is a misery-filled book, but it is not. Far from it. These are simply the everyday sort of things that the various different characters encounter during the story, and they deal with them as and when they need to in a positive and healthy manner. In this way, author Laura Jarratt writes in a very natural manner. Neither the writing nor the storyline come across as contrived or constructed; instead it feels very much as if these could be real people going through just these same things somewhere in a sleepy little English town. All credit to Jarratt.

Ultimately, Jenna and Ryan both manage to find a way through their problems - or, at least, begin to learn how to live with their circumstances - and there are a few real live truths tucked away in their story. Skin Deep is not likely to attract a cult following to the extent that authors such as Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins have, but it is a strong offering in a sometimes indifferent teen market that will sit well alongside authors such as Jenny Downham.

You Against Me, by Jenny Downham

You Against Me is the story of Mikey and Ellie. Mikey’s fifteen year old sister, Karyn, has been raped, or so she claims. The perpetrator? Ellie’s brother, Tom - but he says he’s innocent. When Mikey goes round to confront Tom, Ellie answers the door. It’s not love at first sight, but Mikey figures if he gets to know her, he might learn something useful that can help his sister. But Ellie quickly draws him into her world and things become complicated: what will happen when Ellie finds out who he is? What will happen when Mikey’s sister finds out who he’s dating? And, most importantly, who is telling the truth?

This is a difficult and sensitive subject well tackled by author Jenny Downham. By writing from the perspectives of Mikey and Ellie, who are involved but are on the sidelines, rather than the two people to whom the event in question actually occurred, it enables Downham to take half a step back from the rape itself, creating an additional story outside of it and thus preventing the book from becoming too overbearing. It’s also a very clever method of story construction because, like the two characters we are hearing from, until a certain point in the story, I could not be entirely sure who was telling the truth. I started off absolutely certain that Karyn was telling the truth, but once I met Ellie and saw her brother through her eyes, doubt crept in. Downham kept me questioning for about half the book, at which point she introduced some changes that made it clearer what the truth was, which then made me question whether or not that person would come forward with the real story. Outcome? I spent the whole book on tenterhooks.

Overall, I found You Against Me quite compulsive, with very well constructed characters who got into my head to the point that, when I put the book down, I kept thinking about them and their story until I could pick the book up again. I think the most outstanding thing, though, is the fact that Downham very subtly raises an incredibly important set of moral questions around both rape and feminist issues. Is a girl ‘asking for it’ if she wears ‘slutty’ clothes? What about if she kisses a guy and then says no to sex? Does that make her a tease? If someone goes out with several different people in a short time, why does that make a girl a slut or a slag, but a boy just a player or a ladies man? Is it ok to get someone really drunk so they’ll agree to have sex with you? Or, is it ok to sleep with someone when they are really drunk, even if they seem up for it? Because they’re not really capable of giving informed consent, is that simply taking advantage or is it rape?

These are a million questions teenagers and adults alike bandy around. Just because something is accepted as the social norm, does that make it right? What Jenny Downham has done - extremely successfully - is to somehow make the reader think about these issues, but without specifically naming them; instead of stating the questions specifically they kind of work their way into the story through some sort of word-based osmosis. She got me to think about it without preaching about it. This is exactly what good ‘issues’ fiction should do, especially when it comes to teenagers: they’re more likely to take serious thought about it after reading the ideas in this manner, than if they were presented by rote in a classroom. ‘Show not tell’ at its best.