I was 20 years old when my love affair with coloring was re-ignited. Just about to fly home on a 14 hour flight from New Zealand, I was in the airport book store looking for a magazine to pass some hours when my eye was caught by an intriguing looking coloring book. I thought to myself: 14 hour flight....why not try coloring? Armed with a box of pencil crayons and not really expecting my interest to last long, I fastened my seat belt as the plane began its take-off. Thinking full well that the coloring would only last a few minutes before I was lured into the mega-selection of in-flight movies, I was curiously surprised when 30 minutes passed...then an hour...and then 2 hours and I had not even checkout out the movie selection! I had finished my first page in my brand new coloring book and still had 12 hours of flying time left. The rest of the flight passed quickly and gloriously. My love for coloring has only deepened, and here are the reasons why.
The material. Some coloring books offer the ability for the child to simply run over the surface with the pens or crayons provided, and it will turn out to be the right color regardless. Some are more like paint books, and some have magic marker surfaces and come with markers that will not show up on any surface but the specially prepared book pages. Choose the book that best suits you and your child. If you are worried about markings on the walls, then dont select a pack of basic crayons, get something that uses special crayons. If you want your child to exercise their own creativity and not have to fit in the lines or color schemes planned, get basic pages. It is up to you.
Coloring books are a thing of the past. Kids today arent as thrilled by a basic coloring book as children a generation ago. That is because these children have been spoiled by all the fantastic new methods of coloring using the computer or with fancy markers and pens. While you might get away with a coloring book and crayons for a long car trip, dont expect your school age children to sit quietly at the table coloring pictures the old fashioned way - there is a something better around, and they know it.
