I’m very excited to unveil the cover today for Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side! I’m also happy to announce it’s now available for pre-order—more on that in a minute.

First, drum roll please…

It’s a weird thing to see the cover of your book for the first time. You might be surprised to know that authors often have no role in the cover’s development. You write the manuscript, send it to your publisher, and a couple of months later the cover arrives in your inbox. So, it is with a mix of excitement and trepidation that you double click the cover file that suddenly comes your way. 

I really didn’t know what I wanted on the cover, but I knew what I didn’t want…a cheesy photo of a smiley, happy family, probably dressed all in white and making it look like “keeping your kids on God’s side” is as easy as frolicking at the beach. In other words, I didn’t want something like our family photo from last summer:

Alternatively, a friend suggested it *might* be as bad as one of those Olan Mills double exposure pictures many of us have from the 70s and 80s, and kindly mocked up this potential preview (I have no idea who that guy is):

(If you need a break and a good laugh today, Google “Olan Mills double exposure” and look at the images people have posted.)

Seriously, though, I was greatly relieved to see the actual cover. I love that the tone is weighty without being boring or overly academic, and that the imagery suggests a child’s journey…perfectly appropriate for the portrait of Christian parenting that (I hope) the book conveys. I hope you like it too! If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them below.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, the book is also now available for pre-order. It doesn’t come out for a long time (March 1) but since it’s officially available, I thought I should go ahead and let you know. 🙂 If you’re new to the blog and missed previous posts about the book, you can check out the table of contents here.

I just got back from vacation, so that’s all for now. I’ll have a regular new post for you again next week. Thanks for reading!