50 Favourite Middle Grade Book Covers of 2024

Today’s post is sponsored by Walker Books US and Skylar and The K-Pop Principal!

Title Skylar and The K-Pop Principal
Author Luan Goldie
Intended Target Audience Middle Grade
Publication Date February 18th 2025 by Walker Books US
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon ● Chapters ● Blackwell’s ● Barnes & Noble ● IndieBound

K-pop fandom and Freaky Friday collide in a hilarious body-swap story that celebrates the fans who drive one of the biggest musical sensations in the world.

Skylar is convinced that life for her as an eleven-year-old is way harder than for any adult, including her cranky principal, Ms. Callus. The only good part about being eleven is being a massive K-pop fan, even if her parents do ban her from all things AZ8, the best K-pop boy band in the world. When a freak accident causes Skylar and Ms. Callus to switch bodies, Skylar finds herself trying to convince the world of AZ8’s supremacy, going viral in a K-pop dance video, and somehow running her school, all while stuck in a seventy-one-year-old’s body. And then she gets the chance to meet AZ8 in real life. With the help of her bestie, Dana, and her own wits and passion, Skylar must decide whether her K-pop dream come true is worth risking being stuck as an old lady forever.

A feel-good tale singing with laugh-out-loud moments, Skylar and The K-Pop Principal is a joyful and uplifting story of friendship, fandom, and chasing your dreams.

Do! Judge A Book By Its Cover is a regular feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which I pay tribute to some of the best and brightest the publishing world has to offer in the way of book cover design.

Book cover design can play an important role in a book’s success or failure. While certainly not the only contributing factor, for the casual reader perusing the shelves of their local library or bookstore, a book’s cover offers one of the earliest introductions to the story contained within its pages and can help differentiate it from the thousands of other titles surrounding it. Book cover design is one of my passions, and given that I spend much of the year celebrating it in its many shapes, forms and iterations in my regular feature, Do! Judge A Book By Its Cover, I thought it might be fun to compose a list of what I thought were some of the most effective, eye-catching and beautiful examples of book cover design in 2024. You can find Pop! Goes The Reader’s Favourite Book Covers Of 2019 here, 2020 here, 2021 here and 2022 here!

Please Note: As always, I’ve done my best to credit the designers and artists responsible for the stunning covers below, but was unable to find this information for a number of those listed. If you know of an uncredited designer and/or artist responsible for any of these book covers or if I’ve credited someone incorrectly, please let me know and I would be happy to include proper attribution in this post. Their work is important and deserves attribution.

The covers below are listed in no particular order.

01. Mallory In Full Color by Elisa Stone Leahy
Cover design by David DeWitt, Cover art by Carolina Rodríguez Fuenmayor

02. South of Somewhere by Kalena Miller
Cover design by Erin McMahon, Cover art by Alissandra Seelaus

03. Murray Out of Water by Taylor Tracy
Cover design by Celeste Knudsen, Cover art by Sas Milledge

04. Fowl Play by Kristin O’Donnell Tubb
Cover design by Molly Fehr, Cover art by Ben Mantle

05. Ain’t It Funny by Margaret Gurevich
Cover design by Mary Claire Cruz, Cover art by Catarina Oliveira

06. Maybe It’s A Sign by E.L. Shen
Cover design by Aurora Parlagreco, Cover art by Sher Rill Ng

07. Kyra, Just For Today by Sara Zarr
Cover design by Celeste Knudsen and Andrea Vandergrift, Cover art by Elysia Case

08. The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling
Cover design by Kaitlin Yang, Cover art by James Firnhaber

09. Unsinkable Cayenne by Jessica Vitalis
Cover design by Paul Zakris, Cover art by Celia Krampien

10. Crushing It by Erin Becker
Cover design by Jay Emmanuel, Cover art by Ricardo Bessa

11. The Color of Sound by Emily Barth Isler
Cover art by Jieting Chen

12. Trouble At The Tangerine by Gillian McDunn
Cover design by Jeanette Levy, Cover art by Kristin Sorra

13. Drawing Deena by Hena Khan
Cover design by Laura Eckes, Cover art by Abigail L. Dela Cruz

14. Camp Twisted Pine by Ciera Burch
Cover design by Greg Stadnyk, Cover art by Alessia Trunfio

15. The Curse of the Dead Man’s Diamond by Christyne Morrell
Cover design by Michelle Cunningham, Cover art by Diana Dementeva

16. Asking For A Friend by Ronnie Riley
Cover design by Stephanie Yang, Cover art by Ricardo Bessa

17. Benji Zeb Is A Ravenous Werewolf by Deke Moulton
Cover art by Matt Rockefeller

18. The Skeleton Flute by Damara Allen
Cover art by Natalia

19. The Creepening of Dogwood House by Eden Royce
Cover art by Geneva Bowers

20. The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin
Cover design by Jim Tierney, Cover art by Jim Tierney

21. Bumps In The Night by Amalie Howard
Cover art by Matt Rockefeller

22. Crushed by Melanie Conklin
Cover art by Dana Sanmar

23. The Lumbering Giants of Windy Pines by Mo Netz
Cover art by Celia Lowenthal

24. Vega’s Piece Of The Sky by Jennifer Torres
Cover design by Gabrielle Chang, Cover art by Ericka Lugo

25. The Pumpkin Princess and The Forever Night by Steven Banbury
Cover art by Matt Rockefeller

26. The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry by Anna Rose Johnson
Cover art by Stephanie Son

27. The Science of Friendship by Tanita S. Davis
Cover design by Amy Ryan, Cover art by Brittany Jackson

28. Carter Avery’s Tricky Fourth-Grade Year by Rob Buyea

29. Chai Jinxed by Emi Pinto
Cover design by Julia Tyler and Jenna Stempe, Cover art by Lavanya Naidu

30. Hummingbird Season by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
Cover design by Jeanette Levy, Cover art by Karyn S. Lee

31. A Brush with Magic by Flora Ahn
Cover art by Jenny Park

32. Wildflower Emily: A Story About Young Emily Dickinson by Lydia Corry
Cover art by Lydia Corry

33. Find Her by Ginger Reno
Cover art by Mary Lupton

34. The Partition Project by Saadia Faruqi
Cover design by Joel Tippie, Cover art by Chaaya Prabhat

35. Screech School by Jennifer Killick
Cover art by M. S. Corley

36. When We Flew Away by Alice Hoffman
Cover design by Elizabeth Parisi, Cover art by David Curtis

37. Ultraviolet by Aida Salazar
Cover design by Zeke Peña and Marijka Kostiw, Cover art by Zeke Peña

38. The Door Is Open edited by Hena Khan
Cover art by Chaaya Prabhat

39. Samira’s Worst Best Summer by Nina Hamza
Cover design by David Curtis, Cover art by Chaaya Prabhat

40. Lost Kites and Other Treasures by Cathy Carr

41. A Galaxy of Whales by Heather Fawcett
Cover art by Bao Luu

42. Black Girl Power edited by Leah Johnson
Cover design by Marci Senders, Cover art by Vashti Harrison

43. The Grimsbane Family Witch Hunters by Joan Reardon
Cover art by Jamie Green

44. The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix
Cover art by John Hendrix

45. The Wrong Way Home by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Cover art by Shelley Couvillion

46. Lost In The Empire City by Avi
Cover design by Laura Mock, Cover art by David Dean

47. Light and Air by Mindy Nichols Wendell
Cover art by Loika

48. The Queen of Ocean Parkway by Sarvenaz Tash
Cover design by Carol Ly, Cover art by Ericka Lugo

49. Rosa By Starlight by Hilary McKay
Cover art by Matt Rockefeller

50. Not Quite A Ghost by Anne Ursu