Next March, my fourth YA novel will be released by HarperTeen. The Heart is not a Size was inspired by a trip that I took, along with my husband, son, and two dozen others, to a Juarez squatters' village called Anapra. It features a girl named Georgia (who just happens to be an anxiety-prone photographer) and her best friend, Riley. It asks the question, What difference can one person make?, while plumbing buried, dangerous secrets.
Today the cover for Heart was approved. I thank Jill Santopolo and Carla Weise for seeing it through, and I share it with you here. I share as well this small excerpt:
What I remember now is the bunch of them running: From the tins, which were their houses. Up the white streets, which were the color of bone. All the way to the top of Anapra, to where we were standing in our second-hand scrubs, and where Riley said, “They might as well be flowers, blown right off their stalks,” and Sophie said, “This is so completely wild,” and The Third said nothing at all. The Third: He wasn’t talking yet. He was all size and silence.
“I should tell Mack,” I said, but I didn’t budge, didn’t even turn and glance back toward where Mack and the others were digging in, hanging tarp, toting two-by-fours from one angle of sun fizzle to another. Because the kids of Anapara might have been chunks of blown-off petals, like Riley said, but they mostly looked like wings to me, flying and flying in their bright, defying best, their yellow cotton shirts, red fringy skirts, blue trousers. They looked like something no one should lose to a single instant of forgetting.
It was only our second day.
We’d pinned everything on nothing.
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Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jill Santopolo, The Heart is Not a Size, Carla Weise, Anapra, Juarez, 2009 YA novel, Add a tag

Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jill Santopolo, HOUSE OF DANCE, Carla Weise, Jean Paulovich, Dancesport Academy, Scott Lazarov, ballroom dance, House of Dance paperback, Ardmore, Add a tag
House of Dance has a slightly modified cover in store for its release next March as a paperback; thank you, Carla Weise and Jill Santopolo.
In this trailer (the last of the three that I've been creating these past few weeks), we go through the streets of Ardmore and up into the Dancesport Academy studio, where it has taken an entire planet's worth of gifted dancers—Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Villardo, John Larson, Jim Bunting, Cristina Rodrighes, Aideen O'Malley—and one very fine manager (the lovely Tirsa) to teach me a few things about the box step. This is the studio that inspired this novel, which was named one of the best of the year by Kirkus in 2008.

Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Jill Santopolo, Nothing But Ghosts, Carla Weise, book jackets, Add a tag
There we were, visiting our son at college (he looks so good, he is so wise, my heart just flips when he's near). And there were Jill Santopolo and Carla Weise at HarperCollins, working toward a difficult cover deadline for Nothing but Ghosts. I was walking through a hotel lobby. I got a message from Jill. A few bumbling technical difficulties (on my end) and, suddenly, there sat the cover, on my husband's phone.
I fell in love.
You want to embrace those who have read your story and who have translated it into art. This blog is my embrace of Jill and Carla, for seeing this jacket through.
Nothing but Ghosts began life as a relentless finch and in the aftermath of my mother's passing. It went through countless iterations. It has emerged, it is emerging, as a book of which (forgive me) I am proud. A book that I hope says something.
Another one I can't wait to read. I have all of your books on order and they'll all be arriving at once, as soon as the new ones are released. What a gladsome day that will be! (If I can possibly wait that long :)
congrats on the beautiful cover!
and obviously, I can't wait for it either :)
I LOVE the cover! It's so bright and pretty! I'm looking forward to reading it soon.
Omigosh, what a beautiful cover! You must love your editor because you always get great covers :-)
I love the warmth of the cover, Beth. Can't wait to read another of your gorgeous books.
This is amazing news! YAY!
What a gorgeous cover, Beth. I'm looking forward to reading this one.
That last sentence is a wham sentence.
Wow ... how exciting ... the cover is beautiful! Very eye-catching! Loved your interview with Sherrie ... so uplifting and encouraging!
The cover is a beauty. I love those auburn and orange colours and how they blend with each other. And obviously, the excerpt made my mouth water. Many thanks.
Greetings from London.
The colors are stunning, Beth. Looking forward to another wonderful book. Congrats!
Wow, Beth, I had no idea you were this prolific. And the book, the exert, the cover, sounds/looks amazing. wow.
I'm already pulled in by your excerpt, but no surprise there... :^)
Your cover is a grabber, too. It will leap off the shelves, no doubt.
Congratulations, Beth - I can't wait to read it!
XO
Anna
How very, very beautiful. Beth, you are surely a magician?
This I will remember always:
"...but they mostly looked like wings to me, flying and flying in their bright, defying best, their yellow cotton shirts, red fringy skirts, blue trousers. They looked like something no one should lose to a single instant of forgetting."
Oh, hurry up March next year!
I love the cover! I had to look at it a few times to realize that I always make the heart the other way (with my thumbs as the teardrop part). Am I weird? :)