Classic Covers: Girl

This is the edition of Blake Nelson's Girl that I purchased in 1997, the cover I stared at, willing my hair to get that long, the one I still pull down from my shelf and reread.

I first heard about Girl from Sassy magazine, which was excerpting the novel before it was even published.  I didn't realize a full-length novel had come out until I read a review in my friends’ ‘zine a few years later.

Classic Covers: The Secret Circle

These are the beautiful covers of the Secret Circle books, as I read them in the St. Agnes branch of the library on the upper west side of Manhattan in 1992.  I went to the library every day after school to wait for my dad to pick me up.

The library was a quiet temperate sanctuary after a crazy day of junior high.  More importantly, there were shelves full of wonderful books for me to browse, including every book in every LJ Smith series (The Secret Circle, The Vampire Diaries, The Forbidden Game, Dark Visions, and Night World).  But I found the Secret Circle books first, and I read them over and over again in my library haven. 

Classic Covers: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

This is the edition of Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle that still sits on my bookshelf.  I read it over and over again, inspired by Charlotte's journey from rich girl, ignorant in the ways of the world, to sailor dressed in boy's clothing.

Classic Covers

This is it, the edition of Island of The Blue Dolphins that kept me reading obsessively for an entire day.  I had to read the book for school, and I had put it off until the last minute.  So there I was, Sunday morning, my grandparents were in town and all I wanted to do was hang out with them, but I had to read an entire book before Monday.


I had never read an entire book in one day before, and I wasn't sure if I could do it.  But I also had never shirked my homework before, so not doing it was out of the question.