Judge a Book by its Cover

I smiled when I read The NY Times article about the increase in book sales of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" now that an edition with a Hollywood cover has been released. As an ex-marketing executive I love to see how stunning visuals can impact purchasing decisions. Although we tell people, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" they obviously do!

One of the rules in our household when my kids were growing up was that if they wanted to see a movie that was based on a book, they had to read the book first. Although this generated some pre-teen grumbling, it helped turn our kids into avid readers. It also led to great post-film discussions about the differences between any given film and the literature.

There's plenty of research that shows that enthusiastic readers do better in school (and on standardized tests). If it takes a sexy cover shot of Leonardo DiCaprio to entice a teenager to read, I am all for it!