This review is taken from my blog where I review adult colouring books
from a mental health perspective. More images from inside the book can
be found at colouringinthemidstofmadness.wordpress.com
This book is
from my personal collection. Before I get on with the rest of the review
I need to mention the paper in this book. According to Amazon UK, the
paper for this book is supplied by multiple sources meaning some copies
have white pages and others have off-white pages. The paper thickness
apparently varies too. This means that my review will not be
representative of all copies. Sorry about this but there’s nothing I can
do about it as I can’t get all of the different types of copies. Amazon
state that you cannot choose which type of paper you’ll get so it’s pot
luck. I’d suggest, if you’re bothered about paper colour and quality to
get your copy from a book shop if you possibly can, if like me, you’re
housebound, I’m afraid you’ll be at the mercy of random luck. My copy is
‘off-white’, in reality it’s very yellowy and the paper is thin and
smooth. Water-based pens bleed through on my copy so this is definitely a
pencil only book and Amazon suggest this too.
Now that issue has
been addressed, I can get on with the review in the usual way. Grab
your time-turner, set it spinning and go back in time to relive all of
the books and films from the very first one. This book is paperback with
a glossy accented cover and a gold spine, it’s A4 in size and has a
glue-bound spine meaning that a little of each image is lost into the
spine. The images are a mixture of single and double-page spreads with
many of the single pages having a thin border meaning that they’re not
lost into the spine. The book contains 96 pages which are printed
double-sided and, as mentioned before, the paper (at least in my copy)
isn’t suitable for water-based pens and only suits pencils. However,
it’s great paper for pencils and despite having almost no tooth, I found
it really easy to blend and shade using my coloured pencils. You may
not fancy the off-white, yellowy colour and neither did I but actually
it looks quite like parchment so it’s less of a disappointment than
you’d expect.
The images themselves include many stills from the
films which are drawn very realistically so it’s very obvious who each
character is and they look just like the actors in costume playing them.
A number of poster-style images are included of adverts for the
Quidditch World Cup and for The Quibbler. There are also lots of images
of objects and magical creatures as well as references to each of the
houses including their crests and emblematic animals. Some of the images
are scenes, others are patterns, and others are random collections of
objects like a double page spread showing Harry’s scarf, scar and
glasses. All of the main characters are included, from Harry, Ron and
Hermione, to Dumbledore, Hagrid and Snape, and notable baddies including
Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Peter Pettigrew and the most
notorious of them all – He Who Must Not Be Named – Oh go on then, Lord
Voldermort. Lots of the most loved magical creatures are pictured too
including, Buckbeak, Fluffy the three-headed dog, Dobby the house elf,
Fawkes the Phoenix, and some of the less loved creatures including the
dementors, pixies, mermaids and trolls. A few iconic scenes are
illustrated from Harry and Ron driving the flying car, to Harry running
from the Basilisk, Harry battling to get to the Golden Snitch before
Draco Malfoy, to Harry’s final battle with Lord Voldermort. At the end
of the book are a number of full colour pages of the images included in
the book meaning you can either copy the colour schemes in those or pick
your own, they’re also great for helping you re-live the magic of the
films and get yourself back into the world of Hogwarts – as if any of us
ever left! A few other images worth mentioning is a double-page spread
of the main characters’ wands, a picture of Quidditch paraphernalia, a
double-page spread of Dumbledore’s army and a lovely spread filled with
Golden Snitches which will really get you practising and honing your
blending and shading skills.
In terms of mental health, this book
doesn’t have an awful lot of impact on it unless you’re a Harry Potter
Mega Fan in which case it’s likely to considerably lift your mood and
give you hours and hours of distraction and enjoyment. The images take a
long time to colour if you want them to look realistic so you will need
fairly good levels of concentration. The line thickness varies from
very thin to thick but mostly it remains thin so you will definitely
need good vision and fine motor control to get the most out of this
book. The best part of this book is that it has coloured pages at the
back which can be used to copy or give inspiration for colour schemes,
you can also easily google the scenes, objects or creatures to find
images of them from the films to work out exactly how to colour them so
they look true to the film, or you can go it alone and try out your own
colour schemes with bright pink robes, purple trolls and sparkly green
dementors – it doesn’t have to be realistic, remember it’s a magical
world! Some of the illustrations are very intricate and detailed and
others are much simpler with larger open spaces so this book does have a
variety of difficulty levels to accommodate your good and bad days.
All
in all, the paper quality isn’t ideal but is great for pencils and does
look like parchment in the off-white copies. I would recommend it for
any Harry Potter fans but do look at the images below so you can see if
you’ll like it. A number of people have stated online that they were
deeply disappointed with the content and I have to say I was a little
disappointed myself, I expected more scenes and few, if any, patterned
or object-focused images but as long as you’re aware of this and are ok
with it, you’re sure to love it! The only thing I noticed was missing
was a really good image of Hogwarts, there is a double-page spread of it
being shown through some trees but it’s a shame that it’s not a full
page spread so that you can really get your teeth into it. Hop on your
broomstick and fly straight to Hogwarts and get colouring the magical
world.
