Kickin' it with Jeanne DuPrau

So last night was a Child_Lit dinner of an especially pleasing variety. Our special guest was one Jeanne DuPrau as seen here.

She is utterly charming. Her smash-hit series couldn't be better deserved. Now with her third book currently hitting bookstores nationwide she chatted with us about all sorts of stuff. In the meantime I managed to nefariously turn the coversation at various times to the following:

• Hot Men of Children's Literature
• Tulane (Jim Thomas likes it... can you imagine?)
• Claire-de-Lune. Actually, we were unanimous on this one. One publisher (not Jim) expressed great relief that we didn't like it since that particular publishing house had passed up on it. And too late for my review I found the best possible word to describe it. Twee.

It was a lovely evening. I discovered that the cover we now see for City of Ember was not the original cover chosen. There was going to be an elaborate exciting one with the kids pictured in front of a crashing clock tower (a bit Back to the Future for my blood). Then a sales rep nixed the idea and the idea for the cover we see now was created by the book's publicist's boyfriend. He just made the design for some invitations to a City of Ember related gathering. Random House seized upon the picture and one of the most striking children's literature covers EVER was born. Lately I've been speculating about covers. Some are lovely (as in this case) and really grab the viewer's attention. Others (like my poor poor Troll Fell) just don't get your attention at all. And then, of course, there are those like the silly Weedflower cover that never actually occur in the book but are so attractive to the eye that you forget that fact for a moment or two).