This is how it's done

The following is a handy dandy guide to the components that make up a superbly lame 1980's YA cover illustration:  (You can thank me later)

1) Disembodied heads floating amid a neutral background. Extra special lameness if one of the heads is a geeky kid with thick glasses just waiting for you to get undressed. (please cover book before getting into your jammies, girls)

2) Obsolete technology

3) Random grouping of lilliputians

4) Giant central character in a seemingly catatonic state. Extra points if she's so out of it she's neglected her hair. (Girlfriend, break out the conditioner!) 

Combine all elements, slap on an ominous title and finish with a tri-named author. Voila! You have a young adult masterpiece, moldering in the stacks of a time-traveling library near you!

A String of Cheese

I'll get to the baby in a moment, but first let's discuss the hair. This is a style more suited to a 6-year-old than a teen. Where are the feathered wings? What self-repecting girl would style her hair like this in 1982? Maybe she's an android, and her makers didn't have the latest catalogue from Hot Cuts. That would also explain her cool detachment and the baby's look of sheer terror. Babies know. Or maybe I've just been watching too much Battlestar Galactica these days. Thankfully, this cover hasn't let me down completely - once again we are revisited by that staple of YA book cover illustration - the freaky floating head of an elderly woman.

Beyond Another Magic Mushroom

If this image isn't trippy enough, what with the blue floating  grandma head with plastic butter knives coming out of it to the bizarre clip art angels floating around a girl (who has extremely dilated pupils, I might add and a seemingly separated shoulder from the rest of her body), this description of the book is beyond another door, indeed:

"It began with a visit to the carnival, where Daria won a dish. That dish became more than a dish. It sometimes dissolved into a face that spoke."

Uh, Sonia Levitin, I'll have whatever drugs you're having.