** Crayola Gigantic Colouring Book **

Crayola has to be one of the most famous arts and crafts brands for children. Their simple bright products always go down well with the younger generation and I remember using their paints and pens when I was a child. Their creative sets were always on my wish list.
The Crayola Gigantic Colouring Book is an A4 pad full of pictures to colour in. The front is brightly coloured as you would expect from Crayola and can be wiped clean. It does quite a good job at protecting the pages on the inside.

** Price & Availability **

I bought mine from Very.co.uk for £2.50. It is also available on Amazon for £2.44. I have had a browse around and the prices range from £2 to £5 so make sure you shop around to get the best deal.

** Hu - major - mungous **

Colouring books never seem to go out of fashion and are a staple of any creative toy box or pass the time activity. I bought this as something to keep my niece busy when she is around and I knew that she could go back to it whenever she wanted something to do.

The Gigantic book itself is quite disappointing in size wise. Based on the name I was expecting it to be A3 in size, but it is the size of a standard A4 piece of paper. I think the gigantic part of the name comes from the amount of colouring in pages it has. There are 64 double sided pages, which gives you 130 colouring in pictures. That really is a large amount.

The pictures are well done in thick black lines and with large spaces to colour in. My niece grasps the idea of staying within the lines now so this really helps her to try and keep her colouring in the right place. The pictures themselves range from animals to scenery and my niece loves the animal pictures. She decides to colour them in with random colours just to amuse herself. She also likes the cartoon images of people. They have a vast amount of pictures and my niece has already found the princess, Queen, Ballerina etc. She also tends to say she wants to do certain things that she sees in the book. So for example, feeding the ducks 'Aunty H, can we feed the ducks later?' Tennis; 'Aunty H, can we go to the park later with our bat and ball?' Quite amusing but it gives us a list of what to do next time she is with me.

The pages do look like they are made from recycled paper because they have an off white tinge. Not really a problem as my niece didn't care, but I do find something appealing about fresh white paper. The other downside is that if my niece uses felt tip pens, because of the thinness of the paper it leaks through the other side and then she won't colour on that picture. To be honest when I was younger I was the same. I am slightly disappointed at the lack of quality with the paper considering the brand is Crayola. Pencils work a little better although the colours are hard to show up but if you have a younger child, then with the extra pressure they tend to apply with their pencils, the paper shouldn't rip or tear. So in my opinion, its crayons that work the best with this one.

Another downside is that the pages cannot be torn out easily without ripping the page, which is a shame as my niece is a fan if giving people pictures. So I tend to fold it and then cut the picture out to make her happy.
Overall, a good item to have for a rainy day or to pass the time for about an hour. My niece gets though 3 or 4 pictures before getting bored and with 130 pictures to go through it should last a while. Another good stocking filler to have coming up to Christmas and any child will be excited when they see this bright yellow book waiting for them!

** IMPORTANT INFO **

Manufacturers recommended age 3+. I cannot really explain this as there are no small parts. I can only imagine it is due to the crayons that may be used in conjunction with the book or in case toddlers try and rip the paper out.