Alert: La lettera la strega e l'anello

Chalk it up to someone changing their minds. Maybe. A few months ago we discussed the Italian editions of the original Lewis Barnavelt trilogy published by Happy Planet Books. We noted for La lettera la strega e l'anello (The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring) that Dhyan Sahido was to be the cover artist and that the cover image was to be a twilight-hued sky with a hovering mask, snake-shaped shadow, and so on.

When we recently visited the HPB website to see how the series was progressing we were surprised to see a change. Sonia MariaLuce Possentini is now listed as the artist and gone is the image we promoted months ago, replaced by a pale, gray-colored backdrop with a prominent gnarled tree branch/vine motif with a child’s face forged out of the tree trunks at the bottom of the cover. Three black birds are also visible at varying distances. For what it’s worth, Possentini appears to be a well-known and respected artist living in Canossa, Italy.

So while we’re not sure the change, we thought we’d at least bring it up. That, and here’s hoping more adventures for Lewis and Rose Rita nell'italiano.