Welcome our Seattle Host, Stephanie Guerra! She teaches children’s literature, young adult fiction and a seminar in writing instruction at Seattle University. She also heads a volunteer creative writing program at King County Jail, and researches and speaks about literacy instruction for at-risk and incarcerated young adults. Stephanie lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and children. Her debut young adult novel, TORN, will be published by Marshall Cavendish in spring of 2012.
Stay tuned for Stephanie's reports of Seattle book events! Today, she shares a book review of Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales:
"Leila Sales’ Mostly Good Girls is both deep and delightfully fun; puff pastry that’s actually good for you. It takes on the hypocrisies of the New York prep-school world with humor and affection, and inspires provocative questions about class and identity.
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By: Melissa Walker,
on 11/9/2010
Blog: readergirlz (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: cover stories, leila sales, mostly good girls, Add a tag
The cover of Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales is one of my fall favorites, and not just because I'm obsessed with tights. The book also sounds super-good.
Here's Leila to tell the tale:
"I'm not a visual thinker, so I didn't have a specific vision for the cover. I told my editor that I like covers with a lot of white space and that I like covers with silhouettes (for example Maureen Johnson's THE KEY TO THE GOLDEN FIREBIRD or Natasha Friend's PERFECT). I also had an image in my mind of two girls running away from a school building together. But I had no real idea... There's a reason why I'm a writer and NOT a designer!
"I talked about what Violet and Katie would be wearing, if they were pictured on the cover. It was important to me that they not be wearing high heels because, as anyone at an all-girls school could tell you, students there just don't get that dressed up. Girls-school fashion is a lot of J.Crew jeans and Northface fleeces.
"So, actually, when S&S did the cover shoot, they used Kate Spade shoes with like three-inch heels--and then they photoshopped the heels out to make the shoes look like flats. I was going to buy a pair of to wear to book signings, but when I found out that a) they would cost me a few hundred dollars and b) I wouldn't be able to walk in them because I have no talent for heels, I decided against it..."
