It’s official: We Belong in History is moving into the design department at Ooligan next week. This is an exciting time for us because, while the old adage says not to judge a book by its cover, we certainly want our book cover to be appealing.

We want it to get across the ideas of community, of nature, of family that will be embedded in the text. We want it to echo equally the poetry and prose of William Stafford, the teachers’ plans that are making this book a reality, and—most especially—to honor the words of this newest generation of student writers.

This, we realize, is a task. It will be interesting over the next two months to see how this cover design process unfolds. We’ll keep you updated as we meet with the design managers to narrow down the cover mock-up ideas and, finally, to pick the cover for our book during a press-wide vote in May.

Three cheers for art!