Easing my way back into blogging with Top 10 Tuesday! Today’s prompt is ‘books with nature on the cover’*. I’ve added ‘fantasy’ to make this into a Wyrd & Wonder post as well. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ll recognize a lot of these as my all time favourite covers in general. Links to reviews where applicable.

*After I drafted and scheduled this post for May 4, I realized this prompt is actually for May 11… but oh well I am going for it now.

The List

The first two covers pictured above feature water. When the Sea Turned to Silver is a middle grade fantasy based in Chinese folklore. Grace Lin wrote and illustrated the book so if the style of the cover appeals to you, I highly recommend checking out the book. Deeplight (designed by Romanian artist Aitch and Rachel Vale) is the latest MG/YA fantasy from Frances Hardinge, set in an archipelago world with dead gods and vicious sea creatures. Both of these books are also notable for their distinct, vivid prose.

Three portal fantasies come next. Inkspell (art by Carol Lawson, design by Elizabeth B. Parisi and Leyah Jensen) features my favourite cover of the trilogy. I adore the tiny creatures hidden amongst the leaves as we peek into this new world. In An Absent Dream (art by Robert Hunt, design by FORT), with that grand tree, is my pick to represent the wonderful covers of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. Finally, I have one of the first books I bought at a Scholastic book fair – Bruce Coville’s Into the Land of the Unicorns. I have been unable to idnetify the illustrator. I resent the cover redesigns when book three and four came out…

The next three covers feature striking interpretations of a woods theme: Naomi Novik’s Uprooted (design by David G. Stevenson, illustration by Scott McKowen), Patricia A. McKillip’s In the Forests of Serre (art by Kinuko Y. Craft) and Silver in the Wood (art by David Curtis). Anna-Marie McLemore’s magical realism books always have lush covers; Wild Beauty exemplifies that. Lastly, I had to include a Tolkien book. I chose the forthcoming The Nature of Middle-earth (art by Ted Nasmith).

Do any of these covers appeal to you? Link your TTT or Wyrd & Wonder post in the comments!