Writes Rachel Harrison, Assistant Librarian
Can you really judge a book by its cover? At the latest Book Boffz session, pupils put that idea to the test through a series of imaginative challenges, from identifying foreign-language editions to recognising books from tiny fragments of cover art. This led to some brilliant conversations with a lot of laughter.
Our latest Book Boffz session explored a question readers are often warned against: should you judge a book by its cover?
Book jackets create our very first impressions of a book. They have the power to tempt us, mislead us, or even put us off reading altogether. With this in mind, the Book Boffz spent the session putting their literary instincts to the test through a series of cover-based challenges.
First, pupils examined foreign language editions of well-known books and had to deduce both the language and the title from the cover alone. Gwilym H. (3rd) proved particularly adept at this, confidently identifying even the more unusual languages, including Vietnamese and Georgian.
Another challenge removed every identifying word from the cover, leaving only the illustration as a clue, while in a different round pupils attempted to recognise books from zoomed-in close-ups of just a small section of the cover artwork. There were also cleverly distorted covers that required especially sharp observation to recognise.
Perhaps the most entertaining activity involved a selection of lesser-known books whose titles had been removed entirely. Pupils were invited to invent their own replacements. All the boys rose to the challenge, but Evyavan A. (U3rd) and Eashar S. (U3rd) produced some especially witty and amusing suggestions.
The session was designed as a fun way to round off the week, while also reminding us how much a single image can shape our expectations of a book before we have read a single page.
Book Boffz is open to all Thirds and Upper Thirds with a love of books, reading, bookish activities and, of course, biscuits. We meet on Fridays after school. Please speak to a member of the Library Team if you would like more information.
