What we have here are the American, British and Russian covers for Kirsten Miller's Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City. (Sorry about the British cover coming out blurry - it is so small on the Bloomsbury site that any increase in size loses the sharpness.)
I think this is very interesting - for a book sold as Middle Grade, or ages 10 & up, you've got some major variety here. The British cover seems to definitely be skewing to an older readership - those girls look more 14 (and are dressed more 14) than 10, that's for sure. Although that might fit better with the age of the girls in the book. The Russian cover is the best I think, and the US cover the worst. While the US cover did catch my eye simply because it wasn't a photo (and not headless!) that Russian cover is beautiful. It also shows the whole group of girls, something I think the US cover is sadly lacking. (The book really is not all about Kiki after all.)
These covers make me wonder who the different publishers are selling to age-wise, or whose eyes they are hoping to catch in stores. I think older teens would find Kiki dull to a certain degree - no sex or hint of romance which most YA fare seems to include (for girls anyway). (This makes me wonder if teenage girls really are romance obsessed or just believed to be romance obsessed. It's one of those chicken/egg problems.)
What I really loved about this book (and its sequel) was that it played so wonderfully into that longing that most kids have for adventure - for discovering that there really is weird stuff going on in the world and it's not all that boring school/homework/piano lessons/soccer practice/required family function crap that you have been led to believe. This is, of course, what Harry Potter is all about as well. The hook Miller threw into the Kiki books was the actual NYC history that crops up throughout the narratives. It lends the stories more credence - makes them harder to dismiss and ignore than a story of wizardry and magic. (Which just can't possibly be true, can it? :)
Three Kikis, same story. It's interesting to see how we all view something so differently, isn't it?
[You can read more about the Russian cover at Kirsten Miller's site - where I got the image from!]
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January 29
2008
04:53 AM
Oh, DEFINITELY I love the Russian one -- the hat is all kind of perfect! The British one has that hip-slung look that definitely depicts older girls. I always loved that the girls were SO YOUNG, yet running the unseen world -- that's the beauty of the whole thing: empowerment. I didn't mind the U.S. cover, but it definitely had to grow on me on close examination. I really wish I could see the Russian one in person -- it's apparently iridescent! Gorgeous.