Animalia Coloring Book

Rating:
Summary: Great book with one disturbing page
Review: The brilliance of this book is not just the way the illustrations walk into your living room or the way the colors drip right off the pages, but in how it grows in skills as your child grows.
From a small child giggling at the silliness of your words as you read aloud; to an older child weaving their way through the labrynth of puzzles and challenges, like figuring out the name of the picture in relation to the letter of the alphabet.
Graeme Base is a "versatile virtuoso of vociferous verbosity" in this linguistic and artistic pleasure for the entire family.

Rating:
Summary: EXTREME
Review: This book is extremely beautiful and extremely horrifying at once. It is a book difficult to rate, as it is either fabulous or hideous...but nowhere between the two. The artwork is just as others have stated, breathtaking, but I'm surprised that I don't see more cautionary advice. Judging from some of the art, Animalia seems to be politically motivated, and the politics it portrays tends toward the fascist/communist end of the continuum. Further, there are other quite disturbing pictures hidden within the pages; besides swastikas, there are gargoyles, dragons and demons, to name a few. Some of these pictures are provoking at best and frightening at worst. From a christian perspective, this is NOT a book to leave laying around unattended with small children at home. However, a responsible parent could use these perplexities as teaching opportunities, providing the book is given a thorough preview first. The exceptional images depicted in this book, though outlandish, are worth the complexities a few of them create. I would recommend this book, but only with the prior warning that this book should NOT be handed over to innocent children without a capable adult being there to either hide certain pictures from view (not likely), or to explain them. One could use these unconventional portrayals to distinguish the spiritual beliefs of the family from those of society at large.

A final word of caution: Anamalia is not a great resource for teaching small children their alphabet or phonics sounds, nor does it seem to be intended for this use. The book's layout is such that would only confuse new learners, and the pictures (especially those previously mentioned) are not suited for the very young. For a child who is mature for his age and already has a good grasp on the alphabet and it's phonetic sounds, Anamalia would make an excellant reinforcement and review, again with parental involvement (as it has for my five-year-old). I guess my advice is to buy the book, but don't swallow it whole.

Rating:
Summary: Ignore the Reading Level - It's Great for Adults
Review: Yep, ignore the reading level on Animalia, 'cause any adult that likes to color will *love* this book!

One of my favorite methods of relaxtion is to get out the crayons, colored pencils, or watercolors and tackling a coloring book. Animalia is one of, if not *the*, very best coloring books I've seen.

Many of the pictures are two-page spreads and some have two letters of the alphabet on one page. My only wish is that it was on a paper that withstood watercolor a little better. I like to lay it on thick sometimes :)

The drawing details are absolutely wonderful and none of the pictures are "overdrawn". Overdrawn detail makes it much more difficult to color and one tends to resort to using pencil crayons in to get into the small areas.

I love this book and wish Mr. Base would do more. Please!