An eight-and-a-half-year-old voracious reader refuses to read books with covers he dislikes, even dismissing gifts without reading the blurb. His mother seeks advice on helping him look beyond cover art.
Advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith suggests embracing his focus on covers rather than fighting it. She proposes letting him design his own covers, using brown paper to hide original covers, or creating a collection of all-purpose covers to stick on any book.
Gordon-Smith warns against making art appreciation a chore. She notes that while it's tempting to correct a child's taste, doing so can make reading feel like an obligation. Instead, she encourages parents to help children develop their own aesthetic sensibility by discussing why they prefer certain covers.
She concludes that working with a child's emphasis on covers can deepen their relationship with books, rather than being a capitulation to superficial judgments.
