We’ve all heard the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” While this is a great lesson when it comes to people (don’t judge someone’s insides by how they look on the outside) it actually doesn‘t apply so well to books. Cover design is someone’s whole job, and if they do it well, potential readers should be able to tell a lot about a book by its cover! A great cover is eye-catching in some way; it makes people want to pick up the book and learn more.
But what about a book’s title? There are perfectly good books with generic, forgettable titles; and there are excellent titles for mediocre books (fewer of the latter, though, I think). Below is a list of titles that have stood out to me over the years: some are laugh-out-loud funny, some are poetic, and some inspire instant curiosity. (I requested Wolfie the Bunny based on the title alone; I didn’t even need to read the review. How could a book called Wolfie the Bunny be anything but amazing? Likewise, those of a certain generation can’t help but laugh at Pluto Gets the Call. And with adult novel Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – well of course she’s not, you know that right away.)
Adult
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
- I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
- How Did You Get This Number? by Sloane Crosley
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Dave Eggers
- How to Talk to A Widower by Jonathan Tropper
- What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us: Stories by Laura van den Berg
- Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
- That’s Not A Feeling by Dan Josefson
- Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Above: Cover images of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Children’s
- Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman & Zachariah Ohora
- The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty
- The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen
- Pluto Gets the Call by Adam Rex & Laurie Keller
- I Can See Just Fine by Eric Barclay
Above: Cover images of Wolfie the Bunny, Pluto Gets the Call, and The Rock From the Sky
What titles have made you laugh, made you curious, or otherwise compelled you to pick up a book?
Edited 1/8/2022: How could I have forgotten We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider? And Brita suggested some good ones in the comments as well, including A Tale for the Time Being and Nights When Nothing Happened.
I looked up the ALA’s 
Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln by Margarita Engle & Rafael Lopez
The Oboe Goes BOOM BOOM BOOM by Colleen AF Venable & Lian Cho
Back in 2016, I wrote a post 
She writes that science fiction “allows us to imagine possibilities outside of what exists today,” and asserts that science fiction is the only genre that “allows us to question, challenge, and re-envision everything all at once.” Imarisha uses a new-to-me term as well: “Visionary fiction offers social justice movements a process to explore creating those new worlds….This term reminds us to be utterly unrealistic in our organizing, because it is only through imagining the so-called impossible that we can begin to concretely build it. When we free our imaginations, we question everything….That is why decolonization of the imagination is the most dangerous and subversive decolonization process of all.”
Oliver and His Alligator by Paul Schmid
Those of us who do storytimes for little kids know that we shouldn’t expect them to sit quietly, hands folded in laps, listening ears on – not at all! The best storytimes I’ve attended or led incorporate movement, singing, and plenty of wiggling. (Directed movement is better than chaotic movement: one of the best tips I got when I was new to leading storytimes was that if things got rowdy, to sing “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star” – with motions – because it’s soothing and works as a good reset. You can also sing any short rhyme three times: first regular, then loud, and finally very softly.)
Jenny Arch 