Fall YA Covers: Red to be Read

Happy Labor Day!

Apparently the word's out among cover designers: If you want to want your book to catch a buyer's eye across a crowded (we hope) bookstore, better to be red than dead.

Okay, that's it for the "red" rhymes.

Once again, our roster of fall covers--young-adult fantasies this time--is too big for just one post. Today, we'll focus on designers' choices for drawing potential readers to their books. We'll post a second round of covers tomorrow, focusing more on their content.

Bonus feature: What seems to be this season's favorite hair color? Red on the head, of course. (I lied about no more rhymes.)

These covers are for books published between July and December this year. If there's one we missed, please link to it in the comments.

The red works for me, I have to admit--that skull with the blood drops on a black background would beckon me from afar, and I admire the audacity of the red envelope cover on THE WRAP-UP LIST. Which is your favorite, and why?

A touch of red here . . .

A touch of red hair . . .

Red, red everywhere!

(Except where everything's icy white . . .

Or a deeply troubled shade of night.)

Some books demand an old-timey air . . .

Or tiny shadows in a big nightmare.

Fire draws us in . . .

As do gorgeous dresses . . .

And nothing says "YA" like glorious tresses.

(Except a nice torso, of course.)

See you tomorrow!

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Ellen Booraem is the author of the middle-grade fantasies THE UNNAMEABLES, SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS, and TEXTING THE UNDERWORLD (coming in August 2013). She lives in coastal Maine with an artist, a dog, and a cat, one of whom is a practicing curmudgeon. She's online at www.ellenbooraem.com.