Therein lies the problem with modern reprintings: A revamped cover can help sell an old story to a new audience, but it runs the risk of alienating the book’s established fans. “The impulse to focus on the darker aspects of the book makes a lot of sense to me, but I’m just so shocked by the result,” Depp, of Politics and Prose, said. Maker look like a scene from “Toddlers & Tiaras”? Commenters on Penguin’s Facebook page called it “creepy,” “sexualized” and “inappropriate garbage.” Why did the cover of a novel about five kids and a wonderful - if admittedly bizarre - candy. looks at the children at the center of the story, and highlights the way Roald Dahl’s writing manages to embrace both the light and the dark aspects of life,” it read.īut much of the literary world was not sold on the rebranding. Is that what the editors behind the new “Charlie” cover were going for? The publishing company declined to comment by phone, although a blog post accompanying the announcement about the jacket art suggested that its eeriness was not unintentional. It’s a common strategy for publishers, who are always trying to carve out new markets for their books, Graham said. She’s well versed in the repackaging of classics, having overseen new printings of Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.”Īdults who would not want to be seen reading the story of a cheery jaunt through a candy factory might be more interested in the Modern Classics version, whose cover emphasizes Dahl’s dark commentary on parents who act like children and children who must parent themselves.
Instead, the sleek yet strange new edition of “Charlie” is probably intended for older readers, said Nan Graham, publisher of New York-based imprint Scribner. But the “Modern Classics” imprint under which the new edition will be released is not a children’s book line. printing) have featured the famed whimsical illustrations by Quentin Blake. The cover is certainly a departure from other incarnations of the Roald Dahl classic, most of which (including the current U.S.
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