Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

     The English idiom "don't judge a book by its cover" is a metaphorical phrase which means "you shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something, by its outward appearance alone".  But when it comes to books, how often do you do just that?
     When you peruse the shelves of a bookstore or library, how often does the cover make you pick up an unfamiliar book - or skim right past it?  I know that I am frequently drawn to a book by the cover art.  Obviously, publishers put a great deal of thought into the covers of the books they publish.  Currently, it is common practice to publish a book with several different covers with the idea of appealing to different groups of readers.
     But how many times have you been mislead by cover art?  Have you ever bought a book because you were attracted to the cover and then been disappointed when you read it?  Just think about it for a minute...if you had to go by the cover alone, how good would you be at predicting what the book was about?
     I came across an article on Babble in which a mother gives her six-year old daughter's ideas on what books are about based on their covers.  Some are pretty funny and some are not far off the mark.  You can read the list here, but these are some of my favorites:

 "I think it's a book about a haunted theme park and it stars a magical magic guy and he's good and evil and he's trying to get rid of the ghosts. And I think at the end, since it's haunted by a ghost, he tried to make the park go on fire and it did. "

 "This book is about a tree on a hill. The tree is the star of the book and it’s a very nice tree but everyone else is mean. I think the tree has a magical ring and some evil guys capture the ring and put him on the top of the hill so they can watch him. "

 “It looks weird. I think this must be a book about a tree. I would not read a book about just a tree. And it looks like it’s a sad tree too since it has no friends.” 

 "This is about a girl that goes mining. I don’t know why, but she looks like she would go mining, mining for gold. "