'Lord Of The Flies' is Getting a Makeover, Courtesy of Actual Teenagers

Kids today may prefer actual books (and think eBooks are for squares), but it's unlikely that they've ever been particularly swayed by a brilliant piece of cover art. Because, while there are many, many great young adult novels, there are few great young adult covers. Because cover art for YA books is typically pretty awful. But not anymore, thanks to London-based publishing house Faber & Faber.  

Instead of going the clip-art route for the newest edition of Lord of the Flies and compiling stock images of pigs and dirty-faced children, F&F decided to open up the doors of design to teenagers in the UK and Ireland. The images were judged by a panel--which included author William Golding's daughter--and the winner was selected last week. You can see (and be impressed by) the whole gallery here. Turns out, kids can actually make some pretty cool stuff when given the right tools to work with. The winning design will replace the creepy 80's-era cover, and the runners up will be featured in a gallery exhibition in London. 

Of course, hard-core design geeks tend to scowl at the idea of contests (it's spec work that you probably won't get paid for), but I think this is a slightly different case because A) it's unlikely that this contest put any actual designers out of a job, and B) letting teenagers have some ownership over what they're reading is definitely worth it.

Way to go, creative kids of the UK and Ireland. 

Images: Faber & Faber

Lord of the Flies

Author: William Golding

Price: $8.53

Publisher: Perigee Books (1959)

Binding: Mass Market Paperback, 208 pages