Judging A Book By Its Cover: City of Orphans

This is my weekly post where I highlight and appreciate cover designs and the general physical appearance of books. We all judge book covers to some extent. I can’t say that I’ve ever decided against a book with terrible cover art if I liked the sound of the plot, but I have purchased special editions of books or multiple editions of books based on their cover art. If book covers didn’t matter, publishers wouldn’t put out so many beautiful editions!

So I forget where I found this book – my guess is either book shopping with a friend in Maryland, or on Book Outlet. Either way, it’s middle grade and it sounded great. I was pleased to find that when I disrobed it, the same art from the book jacket was printed on the book! Huzzah! So the jacket was quickly tossed in a bin in my closet, because as much as I like to keep them on (and then wrap them in library plastic), I do prefer naked books. This is City of Orphans by Avi, published by  Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books in 2011, ISBN:  9781416971023.