From: Nell Fleming <nell.fleming_at_wsd.k12.wi.us>
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:47:43 -0600

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There are two distinctly different covers for the book The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, by Josh Berk. The first cover looks very juvenile, 5-8th grade interest maybe, is blue with small caricatures of the three main characters.


 

The second cover is your typical grey, mysterious, clue type of who dunnit style cover with ambiguous silhouette.
 

What I find interesting about the differences is in circulation and patron comments. The first book we purchased had the original blue cover. We read it for staff book club (we always read a deaf character novel each year and discuss the portrayal of the deaf characters) but we couldn't sell it to students or staff outside of the group. It sat collecting dust. When I asked a staff person to story-sign the book for our middle school mystery night he balked several times.....

Later when we purchased a second copy with the more adult looking cover, he smiled and said, "now that cover matches the book"....his opinion of the book seemed to change for the better after the fact.

Also, the book has some high school content, and despite having read it for club, when I chose the book, I forgot about the content because I kept seeing the cover as more juvenile. The Story-signer skipped the content for our 5th-8th graders, as it wasn't vital to the story, however, I wondered if I would have chosen differently if it had been the second cover?

Nell Fleming Librarian WSD Library 309 Walworth Ave Delavan, WI 53115 (262) 728-7133 v/tty
Received on Thu 09 Feb 2012 07:47:43 AM CST