You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge the cover of a book.
In a bid to engage the community – many of whom are likely stuck at home during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis – North Shore library staff have been posing, assembling and putting together odds and ends in order to recreate the covers of some of their favourite books.
The idea was first kicked off by North Vancouver City Library, who in a social media post last week launched its #BookCoverChallenge asking people to find their favourite book, recreate the cover with objects, pets and people around their house, and tag the library either on Instagram or Twitter with the end results.
“We thought it would just be a great way for people to share what they’re reading or share an inspiring book and just take an artistic look at that cover again,” said Abigail Saxton, spokeswoman for North Vancouver City Library.
Saxton said she was “floored” when a librarian at the city branch sent in her staged version of the cover for My Year of Rest and Relaxation, author Ottessa Moshfegh’s languid, irreverent meditation on life, grief, and pharmaceuticals.
The library’s head of programming, Mikale Fenton, also got in on the fun, submitting her version of the cover of the Patti Smith memoir Just Kids.
And another participant submitted their version of Natalie Williamson’s Rules We’re Meant to Break, whose cover shows a bunch of stationary arranged symmetrically.
“One of our teen volunteers did that and sent it in to us,” noted Saxton.
In a friendly display of local library camaraderie and competition, the city library also challenged West Vancouver Memorial Library and District of North Vancouver’s public library system to join in the fray.
People are encouraged to visit their library’s social media feeds for more details, and should challenge their friends with the #BookCoverChallenge hashtag, according to Saxton.
“We wanted it to be a fun spur of the moment thing,” she said. “We want it to be fun and artistic, we thought it would be a good way to show that we’re still connecting with our community – the library’s still there in this uncertain time that we’re finding ourselves in.”
