This is why you need to come up with a catchy headline when posting on the web: Dangerous Books That Kids Want To Read, it says. So I click, enticed by the possibility that someone somewhere has figured out that young readers might actually want to find a copy of the Das Capital, or The Anarchist's Cookbook, or maybe even The Lorax to see what all the fuss is about.
Well . . . no. The article is about two recent additions to the YA market: the Dangerous Book for Boys and the rather more tame-sounding Daring Book for Girls. They're both chock full of age and gender appropriate (I guess) stuff for kids to do, make, build, try at home or on the playground. And the book for boys does have the word "danger" in it. The author of the article is hardly surprised that these books are so popular.
I'm not so sure. When I was ten, danger meant risking your ass on the monkey bars--our playground on Yellowstone Blvd. had a set nearly twenty feet high in the shape of a giant geodesic dome with no rubber mats underneath. Danger was riding your bike without a helmet at 40mph and risking death riding around hairpin curves where alleyways met car-filled streets. Danger meant hanging out with your friend's cousin who had just scored a brown paper bag full of illegal fireworks and a Bic lighter. Something tells me that the activities in this book are more tame. There's certainly nothing on the cover to suggest that there's life-threatening stuff inside.
I once heard a marketer say that if you stuck the word "win" into a gaming-related book title, you'd boost sales by 20%. Does the word "danger" have the same appeal? Does cover art push the perception of risk? I wanted to find out.
So, just for the sheer thrill of it I went to Amazon.com, set the drop-down filter for "Books" and entered the search term "danger" (yes, I used quotes.) For the sake of full disclosure, all I know about any of these books is what I see on the Amazon results page. Here are the top twelve out of (wait for it) 13,143 results:
1. Savor the Danger by Lori Foster: This one is a Harlequin title, with giant blood red letters printed over a man's naked chest. He has no face . . . no, wait, he does have a face but the title is blocking most of it. He looks like he's holding something in his hand. That's all I got.
2. Face of Danger by Roxanne St. Claire: This is part of the Guardian Angelinos series. It's a more accessible cover than the previous selection: the background is a lighthouse against a purple sky, and there is a guy in the foreground--this one really has no face--he's dressed in a white jacket with a faded t-shirt. Giant lettering in black (title) and white (author). O-kay.
3. Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy: This is the third big title from the fingers of Tom Clancy but the second Jack Ryan book--I was actually a fan before Clancy realized he was a big enough name that he could basically write anything he wanted and see it published a year later, which was why I gave up after The Sum of All Fears, aka the third Jack Ryan book, which followed this one. The lettering is interesting: TOM CLANCY, IN GIANT WHITE LETTERS COVER THE UPPER HALF OF THE COVER and a huge photo of a pair of fighter jets (unsure of the type but they have American markings) below that. The title is squeezed between these two in yellow-orange letters. I hate the cover. A book cover should not look like a grilled cheese sandwich.
4. Scent of Danger by Autumn Dawn: Part of the Darklands series. Fantasy chick on a horse against a wooded background. Nuff said.
5. Danger in the Shadows by Dee Henderson. Prequel to the O'Malley series, whatever that is. Close-up of a dark haired woman's face. The right side of her face is off-page. Vaguely creepy.
6. Danger at the Diesel Works by Rev. W. Audry and Golden Books. This one is part of the Thomas & Friends series of picture books for young children. The cover has Thomas the Tank Engine and a similarly befaced Mack truck racing along side by side, apparently unaware of whatever hellish life lesson that awaits them at the diesel works. That said, this is the first book on this list with a cover that actually conveys a feeling of dread. There is nothing more depraved than anthropomorphic heavy machinery happy assholing around in an unsafe diesel works.
7. In Danger's Path by W.E.B. Griffin. This is Book 8 in Griffin's The Corps series which is about brave, burly American men who kill other men in battle. At least, I think that's what it's about. The cover is no help whatsoever except in the most general terms: the author's name is emblazoned in massive off-white letters across the entire cover, with a tiny slice of space left at the bottom for the title in a slightly smaller font. What space is not taken up by lettering has a red-white-and-blue background and a U.S. Marine Corp emblem, which I presume is meant to make the buyer feel patriotic by purchasing this item: America! Fuck Yeah!
8. Inherited Danger by Brian Rathbone. From the Dawning of Power series. This one is interesting in that it's the first and only Kindle book on the list. The cover art is extremely murky: a mottled brown background broken by a fluffy, swirly, off-white mass that could be hair flowing across the back of someone's head. In fact, I think that's exactly what it's supposed to be. Anyway, unless wavy-hair-person's name happens to be Medusa, tish falls flat. Danger Fail.
9. Men of Danger by Lora Leigh, Alexis Grant, Lorie O'Clare, and Red Garnier. (If even one of those names is real, I'll eat a bug.) The presence of four authors on the cover makes me think it's an anthology but hey, I can't tell. I got nothing from the cover which has a red-purple hue and has a grizzled fellow with Ray Bans sunglasses staring at me. His defining characteristic is the apparent fact that he hasn't shaved in a while. Well, half of him hasn't shaved--this is another cover with half a face. Attention, art directors: what is it with that? Is it merely a trick to fit the desired lettering on the cover or is it meant to be creepy? Once, is creepy. Twice is just meh and more than three times is frankly annoying.
10. The Secret Zoo: Riddles and Danger by Bryan Chick. I'm honestly intrigued by this one. The cover shows a close-up of an apparently over-crowded tree house. There's no sense of who or what is in the tree house but there's clearly a lot of them. Perhaps there is truth in advertising here. I don't care how much your parents helped you build it or how good your engineering skills might be--overcrowding your tree house is a reckless invitation to disaster.
11. Tempting Danger by Eileen Wilks. Book 1 of the World of the Lupi series. I actually sort of knew this one. This urban fantasy series has seven books in it by now, but this is the only volume with "danger" in the title which is why it showed up on this particular results page. The cover is . . . uhm . . . okay, art director fail here, because I can't figure this one out at all. On the other hand, I hung out with Eileen Wilks at I-Con 2011 last April which was awesome!*
12. Face of Danger by Valerie Hansen. This book is part of the sub-sub-genre of romance novels known as "Love Inspired Suspense" and yes, that's how it's listed on the Amazon page. That may actually be the series title, I'm not sure about that. At any rate the cover looks like an old poster for the TV show Dallas; guy in white cowboy hat, skinny woman in white blazer. It looks like they're standing in an underground parking garage. Nothing to look at here, move along.
At any rate, yes, it seems that having the word "danger" in the title does improve your book's Amazon listing . . . but perhaps not much else.
*No, I didn't. But I did get a chance to talk to Joe Landsdale, whose writing I love, and almost got to hang out with after the con except that he had previous dinner plans. Still: awesome!
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