Book Jacket Artist Statement: A Senior Narrative Book Jacket by Talya Abkowitz (2016)

My story, True Life, is about a girl who is faced with writing an English paper on hardships in her life. She doesn't think she has any hardships so she decides not to turn anything in. However, her teacher eventually pushes the hardest truth out of her; her brother's death. Two years ago her brother died in a car crash. She has always blamed the accident on herself and has always forced herself to stop thinking about it. By the end of the story, Hannah, the main character, is now able to talk and write about her brother's death. She turns in the paper to her English teacher and, much to her surprise, receives a stellar grade.

To create my book jacket, I used Adobe InDesign. I knew I wanted a simple book jacket but I wanted it to also have meaning. I came up with the idea of having clouds fall from the sky instead of rain falling. I associate rain with death and sadness so I thought that was a perfect combination to have the dark clouds with the papers falling out of them. I chose the color scheme of blue and purple because although she is saddened by her brothers death she is overall a happy person.