It seems that the rise in popularity of fiction for teens coincided with a change from covers featuring characters, often looking behind the times, to more sophisticated covers showing images, places, and maybe a part of a face or body, so I like your question and might add one about format. I see a lot of nonfiction for preteens and teens that, like nonfiction for younger readers, is often wide and flat, sometimes to accommodate photos, but it may also speak of books-for-school or even look too much like a picture book and be hard to carry about (and the expense keeps only a few from ever making it to paperback). Most of the popular nonfiction adults read comes shaped like a novel. Many of their covers have a simple small representative image, and if photographs of subjects are used they’re not smack in the middle, but cropped and framed with a more creative sense of design. At hand, I have Maria Mitchell and the (word deleted by spam-checker; can I subsitute gendering?) of Science by Renée Bergland, whose pleasant cover features a photograph of Mitchell and other nineteenth century astronomers in the upper third, the title in the middle, and below an avocado-colored band with brief description and blurb. I love the cover of The Man who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus by Joshua Kendall. The margins show a series of a hand writing with a feather quill; the black and white image is repeated like a the strip of photos from one of those old machines, with a small, round, locket-like painting of him in the center. It’s attractive. It makes me curious, as does the lovely cover of a book for younger readers, Through my Eyes by Ruby Bridges, in which the young Ruby’s face is dim in the black and white photo and runs into the margins: we feel both right there and wanting to know more.

There is a particular series of nonfiction children's books that I offer to many of my boy patrons who can't find things they like. They seem to really enjoy them, mostly because they don't "look" like the traditional books. There series is called, "You Wouldn't Want To Be...." and then it's either a Roman Gladiator, or a pirate's prisoner, or at the Boston Tea Party, etc... They have a very "cool" graffiti-type font on the cover with a funny cartoon-like illustration. IT gets them every time. They are perfect for the 7-10 year olds, since they are both informative and just plain fun to read. They are also a perfect size - - I get lots of positive feedback from parents and the kids. It's a great intro to a topic/interest. Take a look: You Wouldn't Want to Be a Roman Gladiator! (You Wouldn't Want To¿) (Paperback) by John Malam (Author), David Salariya (Author), David Antram (Illustrator) ISBN-10: 0531162044 Nadine