The lovely Julie Kraut has a fabulously titled summer camp novel, Slept Away, that I cannot wait to read (the to-read pile is so, so big, but I'm determined to get to this one in the summer, so it'll be seasonally relevant). Until then, I'm tided over with Julie's Cover Story, which made me laugh out loud exactly four times:
"While I love the cover of Slept Away, I didn't have much to do with it aside from coo-ing 'Awesome,' when I first saw it. And that is definitely for the best. I'm not artistic at all. When I attempt to craft, it looks like a glitter monster farted. My concepts of design are nonexistent. Even when I try to arrange the pillows on my bed in any way other than the picture on the bed set package, it never looks not quite right. So, I was happy that my editor, designer, and a very talented photographer took the cover into their own hands.
"I'm really pleased with the results. I like that the cover says camp and summer without hitting the reader over the head with some literal picture of a campground or sleeping bag. The burnt marshmallow, spilled nail polish, and general messiness of it all, hint to the summer going awry without being all that obvious either. Another biggie that makes me heart this cover hard is that Laney, Slept Away's main character, isn't on it. She's still left up to the reader to visualize. I think that not having an image of the main character makes it easier for the reader to relate to the character and the story. 
Slept Away's cover plays off of the cover of my first book, Hot Mess, with that foot and food combination. (That sounds way grosser than it actually is.) They're both stand-alones, but for a similar reader, so I dig that they're tied together in this way and how they look side by side.
"I'm sure I'll get this with Slept Away because I did for Hot Mess...A lot of people assume that it's my foot on the cover of the book. The disappointment and shock I get when I explain that it isn't me makes me feel like I'm telling a kid there's no tooth fairy sometimes.
"My only complaint is that the chocolate bar has nuts in it. A perfectly good Hershey Bar ruined with nuts! Yuck. All in all, though, I'm thrilled with Slept Away's cover."
I love all the little details on the cover when you really stop to look at it; it kinda makes me want to paint marshmallows with nail polish, but I guess that's silly. In all seriousness, though, I would like to meet a glitter farter! Thanks, Julie, for sharing the Cover Story! What do you guys think?
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