COVERS AND BACK COVERS

ENDPAPERS

COVERS AND BACK COVERS

In many illustrated albums the cover or back cover have a very important function in the work. We may find different cases:

- A "bait" to attract readers to the book.

- A compiling element of the ingredients that apear in the story.

- And anticipation of the story.

- An amplification of the story.

- And many more.

VERDEDADES
(Yolanda Castaño / Xosé Tomás)
Biblos
The story is about plants. Vegetal elements, and poems arround them. The cover anticipates that topic showing plants, herbs, leaving a white blank space inviting to enter this world. It gives us the idea that not everything is done, and it is important to enter the book to fill that gap. But, apart from the vegetal world, the authors dedide to relate it with the human one, and then we can see a family: a girl and her grandparents. On the back cover we may see this human element. Both world melt, and plants acquire differente meanings, because they accompany people in their lives. They are witnesses of their relations, they heal diseases, and ever symbolize emotions.

O NENO QUE TIÑA MEDO DOS ROBOTS / O ROBOT QUE TIÑA MEDO DOS NENOS
(Miguel Vázquez Freire / Xosé Tomás)
EDEBÉ-RODEIRA
This a a book with a risky format: two stories, two covers. It is the story of parallelyms: one boy is afraid of robots, and one robot is afraid of children. Prejudices and fear to different people. And the final encounter, of course in the middle of the book. We can appreciate a game of contrasts in the illustrations of both covers (we do not have a back cover here): the boy projects a shadow of a robot, and vice versa. They a re both visual metaphors of their inner fears. Both covers are inverted, so if we want to change from one story to the other we must move the book upwards. As both stories share the final illustrated scene, the image created for that double page is a view from above, so that it can be read from any direction, from any perspective.

VOU TER UN IRMÁN
(María Solar / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Galaxia
One girl is listening to what seems to be a belly. But that belly is not complete on the cover. ACtually, it does not fit it, because it is extended along the back cover. In order to understant the image, it is essential to turn the book back. Then we have the effect desired: to establish a "dialogue" between the cover and the back cover, so that the reader gets involved into it. Both covers form a unitary visual message.

ENDPAPERS

ENDPAPERS are complementary elements of the book, which we can see when opening the cover and back cover. They come before the book, and also after the book. The narrative possibilities of these elements are enormous:

• anticipate
• create an atmosphere
• extend one story
• others

Let us see some examples

SABELIÑA E OS RATOS
(Paco Martín / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Galaxia

In Paco Martín's story mice bring presents to children when their teeth fall off. All execpt one evil mouse, who steals the presents for himself. This mouse appears on the first endpaper in an arrogant attitude. The illustrator, anfter talking to the writer, makes the decision to punish this mouse for such evil "crimes". And although in the written story te mouse gets rid of any punishment, in the final endpaper he suffers an "accident": the image shows the cat of the story who eats him up.

This is the proof that the illustrator's role in a book may be much more than simple "illustrating" other people's work and ideas. In this book, the story does not finish in the ladt page of the text, but in the final endpaper. And it could happen on the bak cover, too.

CANDO EU SAIBA LER
(Yolanda Castaño / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Galaxia

The aim of this book is to teach vowel and vowel sounds to the smaller ones, in the Galician language. Through poems and allusive images, they learn the graphemes and also the sounds. At the end of the boook they have experienced a long was of discovery and learning. For that reason, the first endpaper shows one little girl with a book. She is sad, because she cannot yet read. On the second endpaper, as she already knows how to read, she has a happy look on her face. There is, so, a dialogue between both endpapers.

EL GRAN LIBRO DE RELATOS DE PIRATAS Y CORSARIOS
(Joan e Albert Vinyoli / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Parramón

The topic of the book is pirates, corsaries, ships, battles in the sea. The cover has a special physical characteristic: a hole. The illustrator takes advantage of this circumstance to transform it into a narrative tools, and he transforms it into a window. The cover shows the inside of a ship cabin. We are iiside a ship. When we open the cover, we "open the window", and we are already outside. On the endpaper we can see the same window, but from outside the ship, and we can also see how another ship is coming to us, shooting at us. We also discover we have a black flag: we are pirates! In this case, the dialogue game is established between the cover and the back cover.
Na segunda garda temos un diálogo co libro completo, coas historias das "tripas".

On the second endpaper we have a dialogue with the whole book, with the stories told inside. it is a double-page image with a desert beach, a treasure, and what seems to be the remains of a wreckage: papers, pencils, chests with coins, swords, guns, ... It is the illustrator's wreckage, after the hard work of creating the images for the whole book. But it is not only that. Those images made in pencil spread out on the sand are the sketches that finally became the definitive illustrations of the book. This way the reader may play the game of comparing them with the final arts. And, therefore, he may read back the book again.

O SOUTO ESCURO E PERIGOSO
(Miguel Vázquez Freire / Xosé Tomás)
Edicións Xerais de Galicia

This is a horror story. A tender small rabbit is chased by two terrible beasts: one bear and one wolf. on the first endpaper we can see the predators' footprints, moving rightwards, after their prey. On the second endpaper we can only see some little footprints. The rabbit's footprints. Both endpapers convey information to the reader about how the story ends, even without reading it through: the rabbit is finally victorious, and we see it on the final footprints.

FLIS-FLI-RIS-FLAS
(Araceli Gonda / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Galaxia

This book mixes up the topic of reading and the sea. Books and fish, the idea of diving into reading and penetrating into fascinating, oniric worlds. Then, the first endpaper is a mosaic of many fish and one book. And the second one has got a mosaic of many books and one fish. This transmits the idea that in this story reading is so important as the sea.

OS AMIGOS DE SANTI
(Araceli Gonda / Xosé Tomás)
Editorial Galaxia

Santi is a boy who is looking for friends. He tries once and again, and he does not always succeeds. Then the story is over. the cover is designed by the ilustrator adding one element which does not appear in the text of the book: Santi, looking out of the window, is throwing yellow stickers to the street. We cannot see the content of these messages. We open the cover, and on the first endpaper we satisfy our curiosity, because we can see the words from the notes: "a friend is offered to play", "if you want to walk on the park, call me", and others. This endpaper shows elements to characterize the protagonist, complementing this way the story inside. Santi becomes a boy looking for company, and he even does it by throwing notes to the street.