Judge a Book by its Cover

I admit it. I love going to the DI (Deseret Industries) and browsing their book section for paperbacks and hardcovers. And because there are so many books my eyes are scanning the covers for those hidden gems. I do judge a book by its cover, so if the cover is amazing, I’m quickly drawn in. I started buying books back when my kids were little and times were tight. Back in those days there were no such things as ebooks or permafree books. I made regular trips to the library with my kids to check out books, and there was no way I could afford to pay full price for a board book. So going to the DI and paying twenty-five cents for a book sounded about right for me, seeing as dining out once a month at Taco Bell was a luxury.

Just recently my oldest had to do a Physics project which required him to build a contraption that needed vinyl records, of all things! We headed to the DI, to the (cough, cough) antique section to buy him said records. Rewind to my teen years when I purchased my very first record—Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger. 

While my son waited for a worker to help him open the “antique” case and extract a couple of records, I browsed the book section. Sure enough, I ended up coming away with an armload of books. I’ve long been intrigued by Kiera Cass’ The Selection series. The simple covers have always drawn my eye with the beautiful girls wearing gorgeous dresses. I found the first two books in the series  The Selection and The Elite, and I snatched them up for a whopping $2.00 each. 

Before I even had a chance to read them, however, they disappeared into my eldest son’s room. He’s a voracious reader and he not only had them read within three days, he checked out the next two books in the series, The One, and The Heir, from his school library. 

In the meantime, I was busy reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which was a book he’d been assigned in one of his classes, because I wanted to be sure I could have an intelligent conversation with him about the paper he’d be writing on it.

And while Animal Farm was an interesting read, and well worth the time, I’m still itching to get my hands on Kierra’s books.

The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is metaphorical, meaning you shouldn’t prejudge something based on its outward appearance alone. Yet there’s important information covers are supposed to convey to readers about content, and if the cover fails to grab their ideal audience, then it’s not doing its job.

How about you? Do you judge a book by its cover or can you look past it to the content?

Share your thoughts with me on twitter @RobinGlassey

And if you’ve already read The Selection series let me know if I made a good purchase or not. Should I buy the rest of the series or donate it back to the DI?

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