"Speak" Bookcover-Figurative Meaning

The artwork on the cover of the book "Speak", by Laurie Halse Anderson, is very ironic. First of all, the book is called speak, and the tree on the cover is covering Melinda's, the main character's, mouth. The title speak, relates to the importance of verbal communication and in the book, and yet you can't see the characters mouth. When you read the story, you will understand that she barely speaks her mind, or voices her opinions.

On the book cover, even though you cant see Melinda's mouth, you can read her emotions through her eyes. When looking at her eyes, she seems troubled, sad, scared, and worried. You can see through the expression on her eyes that there is a lot on her mind.

The tree plays a huge part in this book, as you can see from the book cover the tree is covering most of her face. I think that relates to her always being hidden. For example after being rejected by her classmates she hides in the janitors closet, which is abandon, just like her. Several times in the book Melinda expresses her feelings during art class where she is assigned to create a tree in different ways. Art was the place where Melinda had the chance to get all of her feelings out through her creations of the tree.