Modern pictures on old books

[swanandduck]

Does anyone else find it annoying when old stories that we enjoyed as children eg famous five, the Shoes stories are accompanied by photos of modern children. I just feel it destroys the magic of the books.

[Housemum]

Totally irritating - same goes for Malory Towers (luckily I still have mine!). The books are set in a certain time, if they change the pic it should still look in keeping with the style.

Also irritating is when the BBC does a dramatisation of a novel and they change the cover of the original. I don't want the "now-a-TV-series" cover, I want a picture that reflects the book. I think they may have done this with the Twilight novels as well, changed the simple images for pics from the films.

[swanandduck]

I agree. For many children the joy of reading these books is the fact of being transported into a different time and place. When I was a child I hated when the cover of a series of books I loved were replaced with pictures of children in denim jackets riding raleigh choppers or whatever.
I suppose the purpose of this practice is to entice less imaginative children to pick up the books and buy them, but surely publishers could come up with a more creative idea for attracting such children without ruining the initial charm of such books.