So Star Friends is pretty cool. It’s a chapter book series for ages 6-9. It’s got twelve books and counting. You can find it in every Target across the US. Pretty popular. One of the only new chapter books I’ve seen in mass market. I’ve only read a few of the books so far, so I can’t speak too much about it yet.

Except for these cool cover arts.

Here’s book 1, Mirror Magic. English, Estonian, Polish, German, Greek, and Portuguese versions look pretty similar. Some differences in the Star Friends fonts, but they all try to have that swoosh-y magical feeling the original English logo has. Polish even has little stars to dot the letters. I think the Greek and Portuguese logos might be foiled? And lost the star effects that were around the other logos. Most of the book titles are the same as English, and all roughly translate to “Mirror Magic”. German’s is Maya and the Magic Fox. Maya being the main character (she’s Mia in English). That fox’s name is Bracken, Germany. Please.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the French and Chinese versions of book 1. Those are pretty different.

This seems like a textbook case of “marketing for the target audience”. You can tell from the art styles and character designs. From my day job interactions with French and Chinese localizers in the board game industry, their markets favor this anime/manga Japanese-style. In French, Mia’s character design stays basically the same, and Bracken is actually more in character than on the other covers. He’s very happy and friendly in books one and two, which doesn’t really come across in the Lucy Fleming covers. His tail is even curling around Mia’s leg! No forest background, just lots of flowers. And Mia’s clothes (and eye color) are different. I really like these French covers, they’re very animated and full of life. We’ll look at more in a bit. Not that the Fleming covers aren’t stunning in their own right.

As for the Chinese cover, Mia’s character design is completely different. Her hair color, eye color, clothes…everything. I’m not sure if they wanted their readers to self-insert as Mia, or just have her design be more acceptable to a Chinese audience, but she’s very different. Bracken is smiling at least. And there’s still a forest background. It looks much less haunting or mystical or whatever Fleming was going for on the standard covers. I may have to pick up a copy of this version, because I’m really curious if any of the story changed.

Let’s continue with book 2, Wish Trap. This features my favorite character, mean girl Violet (and her cat, Sorrel). We’re gonna focus on the English, French, and Chinese versions from now on, since they have the most changes.

This one’s interesting because Violet keeps her hair style in English and Chinese, but keeps her hair color in one and two. The Chinese cover is a bit of a spoiler, since it shows the main confrontation scene at the end. They even put the shed thing in the background! I’m not sure what scene is going on in the French cover, since Violet already has her powers in book 1. She looks a little too happy for Violet also.

For the record, the German titles follow the same naming scheme as German book 1, with book 2 being Leonie and the Wildcat. I guess names have to be localized too sometimes? Leonie means “lioness” in German (and Latin and French?), so that makes sense given Violet’s aggressive personality and she even has a cat. Maya means “dream” or “illusion” in Sanskrit and “courage” in Maori and “magic” in Greek, which all makes sense for Mia.

Hang on a sec…

Here’s German books 3 and 4. Lottie and the Speedy Squirrel and Sita and the Magical Deer. Lexi is Lottie in German and Sita is…still Sita.

Lottie in old Germanic means “freedom”. This also tracks with Lexi’s agility powers and her squirrel companion, Juniper.

The girls have powers, by the way. I’ll talk more about that when I cover the series.

Sita is the goddess of devotion in the Hindu epic Ramayana, which also also makes sense given her healing powers and dedication to making sure her friends get along. Well, a lot more effort went into these then I might have originally thought.

Speaking of effort, here’s the remaining books 3 and 4, Secret Spell and Dark Tricks. Book 3 features Lexi and 4 features Sita. The French version has Lexi crazy in-character with the tree-hanging and Juniper running on the bottom of her arm and all. And Lexi is wearing a panda shirt for some reason. And and the Star Friends logo is changing colors on each cover too. Lexi actually isn’t on the Chinese cover, Mia is (using her future sight). This might be a Magic Tree House situation, where the books are out of order. We do see Lexi later on on the cover of Chinese book 5. I think it’s more likely that they’re just focusing on different scenes in the books, instead of keeping a different character focus each book.

Sita is pretty reserved, so she’s fine on all three covers of book 4. That scarf on the French cover is a little weird. Maybe they’re trying to do something similar to her sleeves in the English version? She’s wearing a dress in all three versions too, though they are very different dresses.

Book 5 is Night Shadows. Mia is back (and so is Lexi!). Bracken’s smiling this time in the English version. French version continues to kill it with the personality. This French cover, and the Chinese book 3 and 5 are what made me think China might be switching the book releases around. Mia’s got her mirror that she uses for her future sight power in the French version here and Chinese book 3. That, and Lexi is on this cover and not book 3. I really need to catch up reading the series.

Using Google Translate to check the Chinese titles of books 3 and 5 gives us Nightmares Come True and Invisible Enemy. Probably not completely accurate translations, but good enough to match Chinese book 3 to English book 5. We’re learning as we go, folks.

Looks like we’re back to normal with Poison Potion, book 6. Magic Potion in Chinese (probably). The girls are changing clothes on new covers, which is pretty cool. Violet focus on the Chinese version. Along with the mysterious potion poisoner. And a lot of sweets for some reason.

Book 7 is Moonlight Mischief (Midnight Mystery for Chinese). Sita’s back on all three covers, but only the focus on two of them. I suppose Mia is the main character in every book, even if each of the girls gets more focus in some books. I just noticed that Bracken, Willow, and Sorrel all have blue eyes in the Chinese version. New clothes for Sita too. They keep the striped shirt in the first two versions.

Book 8 is Hidden Charm. Hidden Spells on the Chinese version. Nothing for France, because it’s not out there yet. Violet focus in English. Mia and Sita in Chinese. And more sweets. That one in focus that says “Thank You!” in English is a pretty Asian looking sweet. Tiny plate, small cake, strawberry, English text. Even the food is getting localized.

Books 9, 10, 11, and 12 are only in English right now. Since we’re on a new set of four books, it lets us look at how the backgrounds adapt each book. Each set of four books usually keeps the same (or a similar) background. This new set of four changes it up more than usual, but still keeps the forest theme in all of them. We still have the moon in the background of every English cover too.

Book 13 was also recently announced, for a September 2025 release. Looks like we have a new Star Friend, Maddie!

The English books also come in sets of two, which shows how clever the earlier backgrounds really are. Keep the background, change the color on each side to match characters and they merge together perfectly. Forest theme in one through four. Ocean theme in five through eight.

Here’s some arts and page spreads from inside Chinese books one and two, because they’re neat. I couldn’t find any from the French version, unfortunately. I’m surprised they kept the evil garden gnome in book 2. I thought that was mostly an American thing. I guess that is the main problem in the book, but they changed enough other things.

So That’s It

That’s all the Star Friends covers I could find. Really cool, actually. I wasn’t expecting such a diverse set of covers when I started working on this article. I only do about one of these a year, but I might start looking into more covers. There might be whole worlds of art to explore.