The author says:
Sci-fi/Space Opera action/adventure story. Targeting older children/pre-teens. Newly qualified Captain Aurora Starlight sets out on a time and space-bending adventure to save a uncontacted race of aliens from annihilation.
This is final and published cover, but returning back to the writing world after a long break and considering a redo.
Nathan says:
Consider that redo! This cover may win some nostalgia points among readers who are old enough to remember the simplified covers of SF for young readers in the ’60s and ’70s, but that’s not really your target audience, is it?
I just looked at the top-selling science fiction books for readers age 9-12 on Amazon. (Click to see it larger.)
What I see is colorful, dynamic artwork, mostly with figures in action. (Red Sun is an outlier — in other words, that’s statistically not the example you want to follow.)
The good news is, this is exactly the kind of thing that A.I. is good for. Play around with it; see if you can come up with an illustration that evokes the kind of reaction you want in your readers.
Good luck!
First, a note to Nathan: Please, please, please do not encourage anyone to turn to AI to generate a cover image! You are not doing them any favors by doing that!
Now to the cover: It has a nice retro feel to it…but it is not going to work well for your intended audience, for whom anything retro is not going to have any significance. I think you may be best served by setting this cover aside and starting again from scratch, taking a close look at the covers of commercially published science fiction for younger readers.
I agree with the other comments about the cover is not going to work for the intended audience. However, I like the minimalist, mid-century style so maybe keep it and write a sci-fi tale set in the atomic age, maybe revisionist history. It’d be perfect.
The least you could do would be to add a kid or two to whatever new cover you come up with.