Some kids like to be freely creative – and that’s great. Some need a little nudge, or even some lines to colour in, and for those kids, I have a couple of great new activity books.
Windblown
by Edouard Manceau
OwlKids
ISBN: 978 1 92697 377 7
Scraps of paper are blowing in the wind… bright colours and interesting shapes appear on the page. Whose are they? Different animals claim them, each demonstrating how you could make a chicken, a fish, a frog, and so on out of them. In the end, the wind scatters them again and delivers them to the reader, asking what s/he will make of them.
It’s a fun little concept, modelling the idea of paper collage and seeing more than the sum of the pieces, and then setting kids loose with them – training wheels of sorts. If you want to extend it in the obvious way, by giving a child the same shapes, OwlKids has a printable version of them to get you started. And after that, a child may just be ready to head out on their own, with other random shapes!
Windblown is available for pre-order, and comes out on April 15th. Meanwhile, here’s a sample page to check out:
Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Bookby Johganna Basford
Laurence King Publishing
ISBN: 978 1 78067 106 2
One part I Spy, one part detailed colouring book for bigger kids, and every bit incredibly gorgeous, this beautifully made book is sure to keep you and/or your kid busy gilding the lilies found on its pages. This is definitely for a kid who is too old for your standard-issue colouring book, but may still love to colour, who may want to make beauty even if they aren’t feeling creative enough to have their own thing to draw. It’s a great gift for bigger kids or teens when bundled with some coloured penciils or markers, which are the tools the level of detail demands.
This one? Is going to work with me, because I don’t want to share it with my kid. Hey, adults need the relaxation of colouring sometimes, too. Okay, I’ll probably buy her a copy, too. But can you blame me? I mean, just look at one page of this artistry:
Leave a Reply