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Summer Covers, Had Me a Blast

All right, it's True Confessions time: I'm a sucker for books whose covers scream, "Summer!" 

My all-time favourite summer cover is Alice Petersen's short story collection, All the Voices Cry, and when the book came out in 2012, I cooked up reason after reason to feature that gorgeous cover on the 49th Shelf main page. Because I loved that cover—the lake, horizon, the just-perceptible haze. I loved that leap, with arms and legs outstretched—a moment in midair. This is summer: ephemeral, soaring, perfect. 

Book Cover All the Voices Cry

 

Some of this year's best summer covers take a similar approach, and the results are just as pleasing, such as the bestselling graphic novel, This One Summer, by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki:

 

Book Cover This One Summer

 

Mating for Life, by Marissa Stapley, features raft-leaps as well, perhaps fitting for this novel about mothers, daughters, and sisters and the chances we take in our lives. 

 

mating for life

 

Last summer's Arguments With the Lake, by Tanis Rideout, poems imagined from the life and experiences of Great Lake swimmer Marilyn Bell, is just as compelling with a vintage feel. 

 

Book Cover Arguments With the Lake

 

With its knobby knees and bare legs, I'm also a bit besotted with the cover for Vikki VanSickle's middle-grade novel about the summer of 1962, Summer Days, Starry Nights

 

Book Cover Summer Days Starry Nights

 

It puts me in mind of this cover I love from a recent reissue of A Handful of Time, by Kit Pearson, which, with its cottage setting, is such a perfect summer book for young readers. 

 

Book Cover A Handful of Time

 

And we've got more retro styling in these next two books by university presses. Dale Barbour's Winnipeg Beach came out last year, the story of "the Coney Island of the West." 

 

Book Cover Winnipeg

 

Julia Harrison's A Timeless Place: The Ontario Cottage considers "a place where memories are treasured, national identity is celebrated, spiritual balance is restored, and a few dark secrets are kept." 

 

A Timeless Place

 

Speaking of summer cottages, James Ross is back with a sequel to Cottage Daze, his new title, Still in a Daze at the Cottage, which features a Muskoka chair (of course). 

 

Still in a Daze

 

And how about those dunes on the cover of Lorne Elliott's novel, Beach Reading, illustrated by Timothy Elliott? 

Book Cover Beach Reading

It's only just June, but can you tell that I'm already dreaming summer reads? I'm so looking forward to seeing the scenes on these covers come to life.