Rational:

"'The people at home,' I said. 'A lot of them call me an apple.'
'Do they think you’re a fruit or something?' he asked.
'No, no,' I said. 'They call me an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside.'"

For our book cover, we thought that the apple was a great image for the book, because it signified the conflicted way that Junior saw himself. Torn between two different societal pressures, Junior tries to be true to what he thinks is best for his future, regardless of the bullying and ostracization that he experiences for his choice. For the front, we thought that the school setting was important because education plays a key role in the decision of Junior, while the blackboard in the back was perfect for the title, making it look like it was written in chalk.
The back we thought was a good choice because, continuing the theme of apples, we thought that it would be a good image to have an apple that actually showed white on the inside. The apple itself is a great symbol for the book. Theres that old gesture of giving your teacher an apple, which is ironic because that is the last thing that Junior would do for his teachers, and because apples can be reminiscent of childhood, of picking apples in the backyard, eating them for lunch, they are delicious and nutritious and they are full of potential, like the potential to be made into an apple pie.