Ruminations

Truth: I love to color. I'm not entirely sure what it is: the nostalgia of the smell of a box of waxy crayons, the satisfaction of taking a black-and-white image to full color, the opportunity to experiment with colors... I don't know. But, still, even as a nearly-30 adult, I love to color.

However, that does not mean I get to indulge in the past-time frequently. Not for lack of time: I could easily sit and color while I watch TV at some point of my day. No, it's lack of material. Has anyone been down the coloring book aisle? I spot two major problems every time I go in.

Problem No. 1: there are more activity books than coloring books. So many books today are filled with connect-the-dots, circle-the-one-that's-different... It's almost like a Highlights Magazine without the reading material! Seriously, just give me a blank image to color. I do enough "connecting the dots," shall we say, on a daily basis on a slightly higher cognitive scale that I don't feel the need to connect the dots to see that the dog is carrying a bone in its mouth. (I can see the correlation between connect-the-dots and decision-making, don't you?) Perhaps it's part of the trend that every toy and activity must stimulate the brain in some educationally-viable manner. But I miss picking up a fat coloring book full of pictures for me to color and no other demands upon my time, where I'm paying for exactly what I want and not numerous pages I'm going to skip.

Problem No. 2: Almost every book in the aisle is based upon a popular animated tv show or franchise. Dora the Explorer? Diego? Transformers? Pixar Films? Sponge Bob?? There are only so many different ways you can color Dora's shirts and shorts before you get bored. I couldn't even find a Fancy Nancy coloring book for to accompany some books for my niece's birthday (which, Happy Birthday, Mady!).

I know that, mostly, in order to sell, coloring books do better if they are connected to some franchise. So what would I like to see instead of Dora and Sponge Bob? How about... literary characters? Jane Austen coloring books! Fantastic. Little Women? Yes! Pull from the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, even Dickens, if necessary. They have paper dolls for them now, why not coloring books? Even Shakespeare's plays would be a lark. Certainly better than repetitive Dora...