Adults versus Young Adults

Scottish publisher Canongate has recently launched an unsual line: they're having a number of their adult novels and story collections republished by noted children's book publisher Walker Books. The books themselves are the same, but the covers are done quite differently to appeal to a young adult readership.

Here are the first four in the series, with the YA Walker covers on the left and the current Canongate editions on the right.(Click for bigger versions.)

Looking at these, it's interesting to note that only the Kelly Link actually looks especially YA-oriented (to me, at least).What they all have in common are eye-catching slabs of colour. What do you think?

UPDATE: Patrick Insole, art director at Walker, added these useful remarks in the comments: "As the art director for the Walker editions of these books, I thought I might be able to shed a little light on the thinking behind these. I think there is often a perception that YA editions of books should somehow look 'younger' than their adult counterparts however, as Brian notes, there is nothing inherently 'adult' about the Canongate covers. Our brief was simply to create something completely different to the originals, rather than worry about making them consciously younger in tone. One interesting note is that the YA cover for Pretty Monsters, designed by the brilliant Will Staehle, is actually a reworking of a rough he did for the adult edition, which he also designed..."