View source for Around the World Colouring Book by Thomas Flintham

{{infobox1
|title=Around the World Colouring Book
|author=Thomas Flintham
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=A gently educational colouring book which will provide hours of fun for a reasonable price.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=No
|pages=48
|publisher=Nosy Crow
|date=July 2017
|isbn=978-1788000000
|cover=Flintham_Around
|aznuk=1788000005
|aznus=1788000005
}}

Colouring books are a useful way for children to relax, develop manual dexterity and explore colour, but in the dash to appeal to the child so many miss the opportunity to be gently educational ''and'' to still appeal to the young.  The two are not mutually exclusive!  Look for instance at this colouring book: it's got page upon page of pictures to colour (with just a little narrative to set the scene) with the added attraction of four pages of stickers.  You'll see grey shapes - and that's the signal to get stickering!

So, what's it about?  Well, as the title suggests, it's scenes from around the world and across the ages.  We start with a map of the world with all the areas we're going to look at in more detail flagged up.  Most areas are covered with the noticeable exception of South America.  Sixteen civilisations are covered, starting with Ancient Egypt.  We hear about the stunning temples on the banks of the Nile and the extravagant festivals held on the river.  There's a gentle sense of humour, with one boatman being very surprised at what he's found in the river - and a larger boat is just about to encounter a couple of hippos playing in the water.  There's hours of fun to be had in doing the colouring and then we get to the stickers.  I was slightly confused here as there are four stickers to be applied but my first glance at the stickers page showed only three stickers, all of which seemed to be the wrong shape, but there are in fact two scenes from Ancient Egypt.

None of the designs are particularly complex and the book is suitable for a child of five years and up.  Possibly the most complex part of a design which I found was the dragon from China (you can see it on the book cover) which will require a little manual dexterity to achieve a pleasing result.

My only quibble with the book is that we do encounter the curse of the gutter on every scene.  You'll need to comprehensively break the spine of the book to get it to lie reasonably flat and even then it's quite difficult to colour into the gutter areas.  The back of the book does suggest that you should use colouring pencils and although the paper used is quite substantial you would need a very light touch to use felt tip pens.  The results though are pleasing and it's fun to complete.

If this book has been enjoyed then the budding artist might well benefit from [[Think and Make Like an Artist by Claudia Boldt and Eleanor Meredith]].  The thoughtful child will like [[Origami, Poems and Pictures by The British Museum]].


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[[Category:Crafts]]