'Fablehaven' cover is released

"Fablehaven: Keys to the Demon Prison," the fifth and last volume in the popular series, will not be released until March 23, 2010.

But fans of the books — and they are legion — are anxious for any details they can get about the book and its content.

So, it is with some fanfare that Shadow Mountain is revealing what the book's cover will be like. "We think it will blow fans away," says Leigh Dethman, publicist for Shadow Mountain.

This cover, as with all the other Fablehaven books, was designed by Brandon Dorman, an illustrator who lives in Puyallup, Wash.

"I hope the cover will spark interest," he said in a telephone chat from his home. "The story has been going along so well, and this is the last installment."

Dorman was just finishing school at BYU-Idaho when "Deseret Book took a chance on me to do the first cover." The challenge, he says, was to come up with a balance of spooky and light. "The story involved a lot of fairies, but they wanted something that would appeal to both boys and girls, so I hit on the idea of using Muriel, the witch. That seemed to work well."

The illustrator's job, he says, is to walk a "delicate tightrope. I have to please the author, the readers, the publisher, the marketers, the salespeople, the buyers."

For volume five, they decided to focus on the "kind-of owl/men, who are a big part of the story. And we thought red and gold would be a good color scheme. We'd been using the more earthy tones, the greens and blues. This one fell into place very quickly; I think it works well."

Since doing his first Fablehaven cover, Dorman has been busy with a number of other projects, including Mull's children's book, "Pingo," which came out earlier this year, a children's book of his own, "Santa's Stowaway," and a children's version of Glenn Beck's "Christmas Sweater," both of which are being released this fall. He's still doing the "Goosebumps" series and has had quite a few "cozy mystery" covers, among other projects.

But the Fablehaven series has been particularly fun, he says, because it is so imaginative.

Brandon Mull is unveiling the cover live on UStream.tv today and will be available for a live interaction with his fans, talking about the cover, the book and answering any questions fans have. Go to Fablehaven.com/ustream, starting at 6 p.m.

e-mail: carma@desnews.com