by Good Wives and Warriors
Published by Puffin on November 5th 2015
Style: double page printing
Pages: 96
Format: Card cover with fold out, Glue & Stitched
Goodreads
Escape to Christmas Past is a colouring book filled with highly detailed line artwork that brings to life A Christmas Carol in an entirely unique way. Evocative Christmas scenes and characters from Charles Dickens' famous story of Ebenezer Scrooge and Marley's ghost, threaded with imaginative, delicate patterns all clearly outlined in pen and ink, make ideal compositions to colour. Extracts from the story are scattered throughout for inspiration, and there are spaces left within some of the compositions for individual design and embellishment.
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Escape to Christmas Past Coloring Book
Escape to Christmas Past is the first oloring book produced by the talented team at Good Wives and Warriors. I realised, when I recently reviewed their latest coloring book, Escape to Oz that I had omitted to publish my review for this one! This sometimes happens in my office, hubby likes to help me organise by stacking my books sometimes 🙁
The ladies at Good Wives and Warriors have created a series of Escape books that all specialise in retelling a famous story in illustrative form. Escape to Wonderland is based on the wonderful Alice in Wonderland story. Escape to Shakespeare’s World takes on the mammoth task of retelling the well known plays by William Shakespeare and Escape to Oz retells the wonderful Wizard of Oz tale. Escape to Christmas Past retells the famous story by Charles Dickens of Ebenezer Scrooge and Marley’s ghost in A Christmas Carol.
Charles Dickens is often credited with bringing a festive and human side to the Christmas season and for those reasons, as well as his outstanding literary talent, A Christmas Carol has long been a favorite Christmas story.
The team at Good Wives and Warriors have a formula with their “Escape” series of books, presenting the same layout and format for consistency.
Cover & Layout
The cover of Escape to Christmas Past takes on the festive season with it’s lovely tones of red pre printing and gold foil highlights. You can see two cameos with solid black behind which were popular in the Victorian era. The balance of the cover is decorated with poinsettias, pine cones, baubles and other Christmas decorations. On the back cover, similar elements have been used adding in a Robin Red Breast for god measure. The title and spine of the book both are red. A fold out flap features more of the same decor with some lovely gold foil highlights. On the inner cover a red background provides a backdrop for the white line art of poinsettias.
There are some elements on the cover that comp;rise just line art that you could color if you wished but, as always, these little books are packed full of detail, and there’s plenty to keep you occupied inside.
The lovely thing about the Escape series is that Good Wives and Warriors really think of the presentation of their books. Each book has a different highlight color on the cover and spine. This makes it super easy to find them on the shelf.
The books are all the same size roughly 18.5 cm x 18.4 cm.
A lovely title page comprising text with a Christmas wreath surrounding it starts the book. On the reverse a double page spread with a pre printed black background sets out publisher and copyright details.
The paper is off white and a medium quality. All of the illustrations are printed on both sides of the paper and are orientated in portrait style.
Illustrations
The illustrations all have a Victorian era flavour as you would expect from a story set in that period. You will find lovely ink wells with elaborate quill pens, gilding and ornate details. Beautiful street lamps and urban scenes lead you on a Victorian journey with hand held candle lamps for you to color. There are plenty of olde world things to love – the scenes of chimney pots,store fronts and elaborate bowls of fruit.
The Christmas, in this tale, is one where money has been spent freely on good food and decorations.
There are 42 pages that comprise a double page scene including the graveyard of Ebeneezer Scrooge, gorgeous Christmas stockings and beautiful boxes of gifts. The balance of the art work in Escape to Christmas Past comprises images contained within a single page.
There are about 8 pages from the double page scenes that are filler or wall paper style pages consisting of patterns. This provides some variety in the book for the colorist. The team at Good Wives and Warriors produce outstanding illustrations throughout the book and do not use filler to bulk up a book, but to provide a varied coloring experience.
The line art has been drawn in a dull black and is of a medium weight throughout. There are some elements of solid black and a few pages have a pre printed black background.
Illustrations in the book tend to fill the whole of the page with detail. However, there are many images and elements throughout the book that have a larger spaces ideal for colorists with visual impairments or health issues.
As with all books in the Escape series some gentle pushing on the spine will help to relax the book so it lays down flat. This is needed as many of the illustrations have line art that abuts the spine of the book, making it difficult to color.
I am impressed how the team have interpreted this tale from Charles Dickens and in particular, their attention to detail with the Victorian era including things like silhouettes which were so popular in this time.
Throughout the book snippets of text lead you through the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Escape to Christmas Past Coloring Book Video Review
Enjoy the video review of the Escape to Christmas Past Coloring Book below:
Where to buy Escape to Christmas Past Coloring Book
| Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Canada | Book Depository |
Other books by Good Wives and Warriors in the Escape series
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Happy coloring x
Lea
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