Week 1

Assignment 1:  Identifying books by their cover.  I did much better on the children's books than on the adult ones.  I'm not sure there is any rhyme or reason to why I remember some book covers and not others. Obviously, if I haven't read or heard of the book, I probably won't recognize the cover.  But even if I LOVED the book, I still have not memorized the cover.  I was very impressed with BOTH Charlotte's Web and Angela's Ashes. But I didn't recognize the cover of Angela's Ashes until I saw the answers.  For some reason, and I'm not sure exactly why, I remembered the cover of Charlotte's Web.  Maybe because that one is in my long-term memory.  I read it eons ago.
Assignment 2:  Blank Covers.  It was not hard to identify the genre of blank covers, especially the romance and the historical ones. I found the science fiction and fantasy a little harder, probably because I'm not familiar with these genres.

Assignment 3:  Golden Rules of Reader's Advisory.  This is difficult because it's not an exact science.  It is very subjective.  The guidelines are helpful because they let you know that you can't always get it right!  I used to take it personally, if someone didn't want to read what I suggested, but I don't worry too much about it anymore.

Assignment 4: I decided to go with the RT website and read about romances.  I was browsing that website and found a very interesting article on how much money the famous authors make.  It was amazing to learn that James Patterson took the lead and was followed by several other authors, including Danielle Steel, JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins, who are all making millions!

Assignment 5: A six year old's viewpoint of book covers.   I really don't know the purpose of this.  It is extremely difficult to guess what a book is about by looking at the cover.  Even adults would get it wrong!  It was cute to hear the descriptions, but not surprising that she guessed incorrectly.  Covers are very abstract.  I think you would have to be psychic to know the content of a book by just looking at the front cover.