Ah, my gosh. Somebody please run my blog! I just will do just about anything but do it.
I make myself so mad sometimes. I frustrate the hell out of myself.
Anyways, I'm going to endeavour to update it with some of the things I've been doing whilst I've been away. I can only but try.
COLOURING BOOKS?! I have made colouring in books. It was not something I'd ever intended doing. It all felt a bit, well, you know, done. But when my printers started a new range of colouring books it got me thinking about some of my drawings that may be cool to colour in. And I tried thinking of ways of putting a twist on the whole colouring book phenomena.
I'm calling it 'advanced colouring' but really it's for any ability. But, if you're already used to wielding the pen then I've added tips to take your colouring to the next level.
There are two sizes of book, you can find them
HERE.
See you back here in about six months time!
*I will blog more often. I will. I will. I will....*
We’ve a week’s holiday from school coming up and will be travelling around the country visiting family, and this means we’ve several multi-hour journeys ahead of us. Journeys are my favourite time for enjoying stories and our bags always include:
our mp3 player loaded up with a new audiobook and some old favourites, along with a splitter, so both children can listen at the same time should they wish to
a couple of new magazines or comics
an activity book or two for busy fingers
Favourite audiobooks include the How to train your Dragon series, voiced by David “former Dr Who” Tennant, enriched with great music and sound effects, David Walliams reading his own stories (not surprisingly, he does really funny voices), and Tony “Baldrick” Robinson’s Theseus and Odysseus. New for our next journey will be The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell (thanks to @HawthornPressUK for the recommendation).
As we subscribe to several magazines and comics at home, reading choices for the train are made from what is available in the station newsagents so that the kids get to try something they wouldn’t have at home. Often they’ll chose a wildlife, craft or archaeology magazine. Technically these may be marketed for adults, but they are often much more engaging than those aimed at kids as they have more content, fewer adverts and less “plastic crap” on the front (a bonus from my point of view).
When looking for activity books to take on journeys my first port of call is always the online shops of museums and art galleries; generally speaking these are good sources of slightly more unusual or quirky activity books. This holiday I’ll be taking DoodleFlip Dress-Up by Hennie Haworth, Stickyscapes London by Robert Samuel Hanson, and also Stickyscapes Paris by Malika Favre.
DoodleFlip Dress-Up is a mix and match, lift the flap fashion colouring-in book. There’s lot to choose from; maybe your creation will have the legs of a ballerina, the floaty dress of a hippy, the accessories of a pirate and the helmet of an astronaut (all figures are female). Prompts suggest ideas for filling several blank flaps with your own designs.
Whilst advertised as 3+, I think the style of illustration will appeal to much older children (say 8+); the designs are quite detailed and relatively small and also look more sophisticated than many colouring-in illustrations aimed at young children.
The two Stickyscapes books are great fun. They are large concertina style fold out cityscapes of the two cities, and come with lots of reusable stickers. One side of each fold-out shows the “real and present-day” city, whilst the other side depicts an “imaginary and historical” version of the city.
There’s lots to learn and explore in both sticker books. A key to each scene is included so you can identify landmarks around the city, and the stickers (a mixture of present-day, historical and fictional people, forms of transport and items you might find on the cities’ streets) come with explanatory notes, making this much more than “just” a sticker book.
I have just one complaint about these books: The population of these cities is far more diverse than the stickers would have you believe.
In the London book, there are perhaps three non-white people represented (out of a total of 33 modern day inhabitants and visitors), or to put it another way 9% of the sticker book modern day population is probably not white. According to the 2011 census just over 40% of Londoners identified themselves as non-white. Comparable figures are not easily obtainable for the French capital, but I suspect the demographics of this city are not accurately represented by the stickers in the Paris book, which could be seen to suggest a 100% white population.
Of course these books are just a bit of fun, and some will say I’m making too much of the hard numbers. But I’d disagree. Why wouldn’t we want the illustrations of these great cities to reflect their rich, mixed populations more accurately?
Alas we won’t be visiting either London or Paris during our travels, but at least we’ll be able to travel there in our imaginations, suitably decked out in the highest of fashion as designed by my kids! What book or story resources do you pack when you’re going on a long journey?
Disclosure: I received the three activity books from the publisher.
....with a little help from my friends (you know, I only ever speak in song lyrics these days). So, a little while back I asked if anybody fancied colouring in my black and white drawings of this girl. And to my amazement some of you did! And, with the most fabulous results, too. Way better than my attempt. So here goes...
Kathleen (age; post adolescent):
Hannah (age; 10 years):
Beth (age; 9):
Jeanne (age; 60):
Gianluca (age; 29):
Andrea Joseph (age; no spring chicken):
And, finally...
Lara the cat. Age; what's it got to do with you?
Thank you all so much for taking part, guys. I'm chuffed to bits.
These two drawings are a kind of memory drawings. Well, the idea is from a memory I've just kind of updated it a bit. Used a bit of creative license. I remember as a kid being told to go and tidy the living room which would have been full of toys and books and stuff. I would pull the settee out and pile absolutely everything in the room behind the settee then push it back into place. You see, creative even back then.
So, this girl has been told to tidy up, and that's what she's done. In her way.
These drawings are crying out for me to colour them in. I really love monochromatic drawings. I am never that happy when I add colour, but with these I really feel the urge. So you might just be seeing them again, sometime in the near future.
Kids, (big and small) you have my permission to print these off and colour them in yourselves. You have to let me see the results though. And, I might just post them.
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The best family audiobook we’ve listened to is The Quigleys by Simon Mason. The kids love it. The grown ups love it. It doesn’t seem to be on audible anymore.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Quigleys-Simon-Mason/dp/0754065863/ref=tmm_abk_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1423726113
Thanks for the audiobook recommendation Penni, I’ll look into it.
coucou zoe !
I confirm your speculations are right !! Paris is of course not a white city at all but a mixed city with different people and different cultures and this is precisely what we enjoy in living in it…. I feel quite upset to see the diversity is missing but the dog poo is not !! isn’t it biased ? we do not have so much dog poo around ! fortunatly !!!
I love the doodle dress book ! Children always enjoy “cadavres exquis”, and if you add colours ! what could be better ?!
enjoy your holidays !
sophie.