Narrative Illustration/ Development. Thinking about the cover

The cover of a book needs to work differently to the interior illustrations. Whereas the interior illustrations aim to enhance and compliment the text, a book cover is trying to sell the product. The cover and spine need to draw a certain type of reader in without giving too much of the story away. A Cover design works well when it is aimed at a target audience. Previously I discussed the target age range of James and the Giant
Peach to be around 4 to 12. As I am working with the novel version and not the children's book, the audience age group is around 9 to 12. When a child is that age then they can purchase the book for themselves. Books for younger children try to appeal to the parents who will purchase the book for their child. 

I began Looking at the top books for 9 to 12 year old's proposed by the book trust. Some of the covers seemed a bit dated as the books were of some age. Below are some of the covers of novels on that list. Some of these books have alternate covers but these are the examples used in the article.  Some of these covers work well in my opinion but not all of them. The cover illustration for “The Wolves of Willoughby Chase” works well in my opinion. The unusual composition and lack of colour helps this book to stand out from the rest of its competition. 

There are a good range of covers which have been used for "James and the Giant Peach". The most famous are the Quentin Blake covers but there have been many different interpretations. Lane Smith has also designed a cover along with the original Illustrator Nancy Ekholm Burkert. The far right example is by Lane smith, I think this piece of artwork fits well for a cover design. I like the more washed out colour example compared to the Quentin Blake covers. Nancy Ekholm Burkert,s cover is on the far left, I like the art work on this cover but I think it looks a bit dated. This cover was for the 1961 release of the book, which is why it seems this way.  The second from the left example is by Bryan Connor and is his interpretation of what the cover could look like.