Copycats on Galleycat

Top o’ the Monday to you.  Today my whirlwind DCness winds down.  Just a breakfast and a lunch is planned.  Maybe I’ll go watch that young man Nick Hornby do his thing.  I return tomorrow, but don’t count on anything exciting quite yet.  I’ll recount my knife fight with Cornelia Funke and illegal break-ins alongside Judy Blume only when I’m well and truly rested (i.e. the scars have healed).

In the meantime, I think it’s far too late for me to get my grubby paws on a copy of Conn and Hal Iggulden’s Dangerous Book for Boys without having to cough up some cash.  Consarn it.  Yet I was greatly intrigued by this Galleycat posting last week regarding the book’s copycats.  I love when a title with a truly original look gets ripped off almost immediately.  I just didn’t expect it to be so blatant.

Here’s the original:

And here are the overly familiar copycatters:

Here’s the priceless part:

Scholastic is rushing out U.S. versions of British best sellers The Girls Book by Juliana Foster and The Boys Book by Dominique Enright and Guy Macdonald. Publication dates have been moved up from September to August.

Publisher Ellie Berger says the books overlap but cater to the differences in boys’ and girls’ interests. For example, advice to boys is: How to get out of quicksand. For girls: How to make your own luxury bubble bath.

Yep.  Because when I’m up to my neck in quicksand, mere moments away from dying a horribly slow death, what I’m really going to be wondering is whether or not I can mix rose water with lilac oil.  Sheesh.

And for the record, we already saw this a book that had tips and tricks for super kick-ass girls.  It was called Kiki Strike.  And it had a more attractive cover than this.  I’m just saying. 

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