rgz

readergirlz is a literacy and social media project for teens, awarded the National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize. The rgz blog serves as a depot for news and YA reviews from industry professionals and teens. As volunteers return full force to their own YA writing, the organization continues to hold one initiative a year to impact teen literacy. All are welcome to "like" us on Facebook!

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Cover Stories: Gringolandia by Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Thumbnail image for gringolandia.jpg
Our Rgz Salon member Lyn Miller-Lachmann's latest novel, Gringolandia, is a coming-of-age story about a son trying to reconnect with his father, who's been detained tortured at the hands of the Chilean government for five years. The father has come returned to the family's new home in Wisconsin, broken and beaten down. Yeah, big stuff.

The cover is dark for a YA novel, but I adore its sense of movement, and I asked her to share the story behind it. Here's Lyn:

"For the cover, I thought about having a newspaper or a Chilean flag in the background. In the foreground I wanted a photo of Daniel, the main character, or one with Daniel and his girlfriend, Courtney. I even searched through a database of stock photos and found one of a young man playing a guitar who looked a lot like the way I imagined Daniel to look.

"The marketing director asked me for ideas, and I showed her the stock photo I'd picked out as well as my idea for what should be in the background. I lost interest in the flag, though, when I saw another book with a photo in the foreground and the flag in the background. It seemed clichéd..."

Read the rest of Lyn's Cover Story, including a beautiful exposition about the symbolism in this cover, at melissacwalker.com.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.