Spot the Difference: Book Cover Style

Perhaps the title of this blog SHOULD be 'Spot the Similarities', but that doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Nobody talks about 'spot the similarities', it's all about 'spot the difference'.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, as I tend to do. Things aren't making any sense. Do you guys remember cassette tapes? Sometimes they would start squealing and not sounding like they should, then the music would stop and you'd hear turning and straining. You'd open up the tape deck and find that the tape had spilt out, and after carefully extracting it you'd grab a pencil and start winding the tape back onto its wheels. (Wheels? Reels? What are the turning bits called?)  Let's do that now.

(Okay, I'm ready). 

It all started this morning, when Mum emailed to say Clare Vanderpool had a new book out. She'd read Moon Over Manifest last year and recommended it to me. It was a good book, so I was excited to hear the author had written something else! I hoped that this one - Navigating Early - would be equally good, if not better. 

There were a few emails back and forward, where we discovered we could buy it online now but decided to see if my local bookstore was getting it in so we could support a bricks and mortar. (Plus, if I get two copies - it's not so likely to come into a small town local as it is to come into a capital city one - I get TWO stamps on my Unity Books loyalty card!)

I googled the book excitedly. Here it is:

Pretty, yes? 

Wanna see Moon over Manifest? 

.Hmm, something ... looks ... 

Oh, here they are side by side. 

This is kind of crazy. How many similarities can you find? Here's my list.

- A central figure which is vertical and has what I will call 'wings' on the side. (The girl with her arms out, then the canoe and its passengers with their oars.) The left (from the viewer's perspective) wing dips lower than the right.

- A travelling route. The train tracks are wide at the bottom of the picture then converge towards the horizon. The river is the same. So far the design is very geometrically similar. 

- Trees line either side of both pictures. And they're higher on the right side! 

- The lighting is atmospheric in both, though the colours are different. 
- The lighting is brightest in the centre (at the vanishing point, for anyone who knows a bit of art history/theory), and the sky darkens towards the top of the page.
- (I'm getting pedantic now.) Vanderpool's name is on the books. 
- NE has a shout out to MOM. 
- Small print in white reinforces the author's credentials. 

Okay, so maybe I just threw those last three in to make my list longer. Seriously though, look at what happens when you superimpose the pictures on top of each other! 

Look how well the geometry matches up!

This must be intentional. Any suggestions why? 

I like that they look similar. It makes me think that I can expect a similar story about travels, coming of age, and discovery all wrapped up in a wistful package evocative of years gone by. And I expect this one to be another fantastic yarn from Vanderpool! 

P. S. It also means that the books will sit happily together on my bookshelf because they match. I like that. Of course, I have other sorting methods too. When I'm putting books away on my shelf I try to put them with their friends. Series obviously go together. Authors hang out with people they're either friends with in real life or are people I think they would get along well with. So Justine Larbalestier's and Scott Westerfeld's books are together because they're married. I put Maureen Johnson's Name of the Star next to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars because the authors are friends. C S Lewis and Philip Pullman have to be separated. And Ann M Martin and Francine Pascal are mixed in together so they can talk about writing mass series for the tween girl market in the 80s and 90s, and how they didn't even write most of the books that have their names on the cover.