As part of Bloomsbury’s rereleasing of the Harry Potter books with the slogan ‘IT’S TIME TO PASS THE MAGIC ON…’, the publishing giants have just revealed their latest new ‘children’s jacket’ – this time for The Chamber of Secrets.
The cover has been illustrated by award-winning artist Jonny Duddle and depicts Harry’s battle with the monstrous Basilisk. Although all seven new editions will be published at the same time, on 1st September 2014, Bloomsbury have been releasing the covers as the artist and arts department completes them.
In addition to the cover redesigns, each book is getting its insides renovated too. Along with brand new artwork and an updated author biography, the editions will be reset to create a child-friendly reading experience for a new generation of readers. The titles will also contain highlights from Pottermore, the digital platform for Harry Potter.
We will alert you to each of the remaining 5 as they appear. If you missed the first one, you can see it here.
Jennie Ivins
Love this one. Such a great scene.
WTF is that?!!! Horrible!!
I agree with Lucy that it is probably the best scene. Also love the colours. Harry though looks somewhat… not Harry-like? I’m quite interested to see how the artist is drawing him by book 4 (where I saw him as quite masculine).
Really? Not a fan.
So, I know it’s going to be rare to come across people that HAVEN’T read these books, at this point. But nevertheless, am I the only person that thinks putting the basilisk on the cover is a major spoiler? This is one of my favorite books of the series, I absolutely loved the dark mystery of it and the lore behind Slytherin and his monster. As beautiful as this cover is, I personally feel like if I’d picked this up back then, not having read the series as yet, the cover would have ruined some of the fun of the story. Sort of destroys the mystery behind Slytherin’s terrible monster when there’s a big bleedin’ snake on the cover, lol.
That’s a pretty good point. I guess the presumption is that most kids would have seen the film, but then the ‘passing the magic on’ slogan seems to suggest giving kids the books for the first time. Hmmmm
That definitely has to be their basic assumption, but if they’re targeting the new generation of kids that haven’t read these yet, well, this seems like a bad blunder to me. It’s definitely cool, colourful and eyecatching, which is what book designers look for when they’re designing books targeted at kids, but if I’m personally buying these for a kid for the first time? I’d look for the older editions.
I completely agree. I would be so upset if I hadn’t been given the chance to work it out for myself as a kid. That huge spoiler on the cover of this edition would put me off the book in conjunction with the usual blurb because it removes all the mystery. Also, Harry looks startlingly feminine here, as a side-note…