Kazu Kibuishi

"The Harry Potter covers by Mary GrandPré are so fantastic and iconic. When I was asked to submit samples, I initially hesitated because I didn't want to see them reinterpreted! However, I felt that if I were to handle the project, I could bring something to it that many other designers and illustrators probably couldn't, and that was that I was also a writer of my own series of middle grade fiction. As an author myself, I tried to answer the question, ‘If I were the author of the books - and they were like my own children - how would I want them to be seen years from now?' When illustrating the covers, I tried to think of classic perennial paperback editions of famous novels and how those illustrations tend to feel. In a way, the project became a tribute to both Harry Potter and the literary classics."

- Kazu Kibuishi on being asked to illustrate the Harry Potter series.



Kazu Kibuishi is an American author and illustrator. Best known for his graphic novel Amulet, Kibuishi was comissioned by Scholastic to illustrate special edition cover art for the fifteenth anniversary of the Harry Potter series. These special editions are set to be released on 27 August 2013. The cover art for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has already been released online, with the cover art for the other books set to follow. These special editions retain the original interior illustrations by Mary GrandPré.