Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books with Handwriting on the Cover.
The topic got me thinking: Do kids still learn to write in cursive these days? I’m guessing not. I used to have a fairly nice cursive handwriting… and now when I attempt it, it’s mainly a big, messy scrawl. Sigh. I love how quick and easy it is to use a keyboard, but it’s a bit sad to think about handwriting as a lost art.
By the way, did you know that the National Archives is looking for people who can read cursive to volunteer to transcribe historical documents? Sounds like a really fun project… that I’ll bookmark for when I have more free time in my life! Learn more here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/12/national-archives-needs-citizen-archivists-cursive/77493951007/
Back to the books! Rather than focusing on actual handwriting, I just started looking through my physical and digital shelves for book titles in cursive fonts… and found more than I expected! Here’s a round-up of 13 that I really like… because I couldn’t decide which to drop to get to ten.
- Cinnamon & Gunpowder by Eli Brown
- Ready or Not by Cara Bastone
- The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
- Letters to the Lost by Iona Grey
- The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
- All’s Fair in Love and War by Virginia Heath
- The Bronte Plot by Katherine Reay
- Off the Map by Trish Doller
- Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery
- Pride by Ibi Zoboi
- Reputation by Lex Croucher
- The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub
- The One That Got Away by Mike Gayle
- Love Lettering by Kate Claybourn
If you wrote a TTT post this week, please share your link!
Bookshelf Fantasies 
The Taming of the Shrew has such a pretty font.
I agree! I just read it recently — I was surprised to find a Shakespeare title to fit this week’s theme!
I love cursive, and all these titles look so pretty! My kids’ elementary school still teaches cursive, in that they learn the letters and how they connect, but they’re not expected to write in it beyond that. My daughter just learned and she decided to write a card to her teacher in cursive. It was so sweet!
That’s awesome that they’re still learning (and I love that she wrote her teacher a card!). 🙂
Fab list! Love cursive!
Thanks! I do too — and I feel like I should make an effort to use it now and then! Last time I wrote someone a hand-written card, it was so messy!
My handwriting has also suffered over the years, I used to have neat ‘teachers’ writing because I was an EC teacher.
Thanks for sharing your #TTT
My mother was a teacher too, and had such beautiful writing! In my youth, I really tried… but sadly, it’s just a mess now!
A handwriting font always makes me want to pick up the book! Great job! 🙌
Same here — so eye-catching! Thank you!
There are some great ones here! I love the cover for Ready or Not (and the font)!
It was really a good book too — not just pretty! 🙂
These are great! I really love what they did with the title for Cinnamon & Gunpowder. And my handwriting is pretty bad, lol, but I still write in cursive in greeting cards and taking review notes😁
I try to use cursive for cards, thank you notes etc — but sadly, it’s so much messier than it used to be! I’ve had a copy of Cinnamon & Gunpowder on my shelf for years and years. I really need to finally read it! I do like the look of the cover, including the title.
Snap on Love Lettering – although the version I used has a different font, which feels like an odd change to make when the rest of the cover is the same!
How strange to just change the font! But I never really understand why book covers designs get changed…
You found some great covers for this weeks TTT! Kudos. 😀
Thank you! Fun topic 🙂
Excellent selection. I very nearly went for a similar theme, I decided to use horror books to fit in with the Summer of Horror but as I was going through my books I realised that lots of period stories, particularly along the lines of Austen were using cursive and I almost changed my theme.
Lynn 😀
I always love topics where I get to wander through my bookshelves! This was a fun one.
Me too. Except that way also often leads to guilt because of the books I’ve not yet read! 🤣
I totally relate!! 🙂
I completely get what you mean about our own handwriting devolving into a messy scrawl nowadays, if I don’t type it out, my fingers practically forget how to form the loops! That National Archives project is fascinating, though it is wild to realize that reading old letters is officially becoming a specialized historical skill. Cinnamon & Gunpowder is such a standout on your list; that elegant, flowing script on the front gives it the perfect 19th-century high-seas adventure flavor before you even start chapter one. Leaving all thirteen books up was definitely the right call, especially since The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch has too brilliant of a title to ever leave behind. Please feel free to drop by and see my latest thoughts over at http://www.melodyjacob.com whenever you are free. Thank you and wishing you a lovely weekend ahead.
Thank you! It really was too hard to narrow down the list. 🙂 I agree, it seems crazy to me that many people can’t even read cursive now, much less write it. (I know for sure that my youngest kid never learned more than an introduction to writing in cursive while in elementary school, and never bothered to actually master it).
These are such great options! I can’t believe I forgot about Off The Map… I love cursive, but I’ve always struggled with it as a leftie. It’s SO hard to write something pretty without smudging everything with my hand!
My sister is a leftie, and I remember how hard she had to work to keep her handwriting neat!
It’s the worst, and especially when trying to use an ink pen. Always had stains on my hands haha.