View source for British Airways Colouring Book by Paul Jarvis

{{infobox1
|title=British Airways Colouring Book
|author=Paul Jarvis
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crafts
|summary=An unuusal and informative colouring book from someone who knows the subject inside out.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=No
|pages=96
|publisher=Amberley Publishing
|date=December 2016
|isbn=978-1445666129
|cover=144566612X
|aznuk=144566612X
|aznus=144566612X
}}
Over the past couple of years we've seen a lot of colouring books: flowers, patterns, fantasy creatures, characters and settings from television shows, films and books and lots more, but I can't recollect that we've ever before had one which featured a ''company''.  Mind you, British Airways, is rather special; iconic and rather more long lasting than most passing celebrities.  It has ''heritage'' and ''tradition''.  The ''British Airways Colouring Book'' is based on exclusive posters, photographs and artwork from the company's archives and the 46 images allow the reader to recreate these as they wish.  There's a bonus too: on the facing page of each image there's a potted history.  I passed the book to someone with an interest in BA and he found the book interesting and informative ''without'' even thinking of doing any colouring.

The paper is good quality and even with a dark felt-tip pen the colour doesn't bleed through to the reverse, although this doesn't matter quite so much as there are no images on the reverse of a page.  The lack of double-page spreads removes one of the bugbears of colouring books - images which are impossible to colour as they disappear into the gutter.  You ''will'' end up breaking the spine of the book to get into the gutter on some images, but it would be possible to remove individual pages if you wanted to display them when coloured.  There's a good variety of images to satisfy those people who yearn to have people to colour and those (like me) who avoid them if at all possible.  (I'm never satisfied with the faces I give people: they ''never'' look right!) 

My favourite image is the coat of arms granted to the British Airways board in 1975.  I've never seen this other than with a two-colour palette, so an afternoon's fun was had with nothing more than the book and a lead pencil.  My least favourite was the graphic showing the size and diversity of the BA fleet: it might have been more rewarding if I'd had more knowledge of the individual aircraft: as it was it became rather repetitive!  That's a relatively minor niggle though in a book which is going to provide weeks of relaxing enjoyment.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

If the name of the author sounds familiar, it might be because of [[Mapping the Airways by Paul Jarvis|Mapping the Airways]] which impressed us.  For more about BA, try [[Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker]] although we did have our reservations about the book.

{{amazontext|amazon=144566612X}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=144566612X}}

{{commenthead}}
[[Category:Reference]]