The Mysterious Library Coloring Book (Korean Edition)

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Buy on Amazon US|Buy on Etsy
by Eunji Park
Style: double page printing
Pages: 72
Format: Dust Jacket

A beautifully presented and illustrated fairy tale that you can color for hours

Table of Contents
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The Mysterious Library Coloring Book (Korean Edition)
Cover & Layout

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The Mysterious Library Coloring Book (Korean Edition)

I hope you enjoyed the video review of The Mysterious Library Coloring Book – Korean edition. The English edition of this coloring book is due for release in November 2016.

The Mysterious Library Coloring Book (Korean Edition)

I have been admiring the cover of The Mysterious Library Coloring Book for months now. I often do that. I look at covers and dream about them. I was going to take the plunge a few months ago and buy the Korean version of the Mysterious Library, but then I realized that the English edition would be out soon so decided not to. Then being contrary, I promptly bought it anyway 🙂

This lovely coloring book by Eunji Park tells the story, from what I can gather, of a girl that goes into the forest and discovers an odd library. This discovery leads her to becoming the lead role in a number of fairy tales including Alice in Wonderland. She has a quest to find a key in order to return home. The illustrations lead us through her roles in various fairy tales and the quest to return home.

Cover & Layout

The cover of the Korean edition of the Mysterious Library has a dust jacket that folds out. The front cover depicts the young girl entering the forest on the pages of a book. You could color this line art if you wished, although it is very small. The spine is simple black background with text in Korean in white on it. On the back of the dust jacket a multitude of book stacks in line art is waiting for your colored pencils to bring them to life. A blurb of text in Korean is centered in the middle of this.

The french flaps of the dust jacket have a black background with white text and some elements of line art in white, music notes and a bird. On the inside of the dust jacket printed lien art of flowers can be colored in. The dust jacket is a medium paper weight and does not tear or crease easily.

The book proper has a card cover on it with the same image from the dust jacket sans text. On the back cover a young child rides a unicorn. Both of these images could be colored, if you wished, although the detail is small.

Interestingly the spine on the book proper does not have a cover and you can see the binding of the book.

The book measures 25cm x 25cm approximately.

Ancillary Pages

A simple title page of a young girl with her cat commences the book. This is followed by a simple nameplate page. A double page spread follows that has some text on it in Korean, presumably an introduction by the artist. This art work depicts the same book stacks from the back of the dust jacket on it in an extended illustration.

At the rear of the book there is a visual thumbnail index of the images. A closing illustration of the young girl playing in the leaves concludes the book.

Layout

The illustrations are printed on off white paper and the bulk of the images are orientated portrait style. However the book also has illustrations that are in a double page scene orientated vertically.

Illustrations

Art work is drawn in a dull black line which is visually easy enough to see. The artist uses various line weights though out the book to depict the texture and dimension of the elements. On the whole, a medium weight is used more often than others for outlines.

One of the stand out features of this coloring book is the binding. The book lays down beautifully so that there is no difficulty in reaching spaces to color in. I will be interested to see if the English edition of the book has the same binding.

From the moment you see the “Once upon a time” you are transported into a world of fairy tales. Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, Rapunzel, Thumbelina, Humpty Dumpty and so much more are all set out on the pages fo you to color. Some illustrations like the Princess and the Pea have been set out vertically so you can see the full effect of sleeping on so many mattresses!

The artist depicts the fairy tales in ways that we are familiar with and this makes it a comforting coloring book to turn to.

Eunji Park tends to the use the whole of the pages to depict her scenes and there is little room for background pizzazz if you wished to add it. There are a handful of pictures with more white space in the background that you could add effects to but on the whole the line work tends to cover most of the page.

There is a good mix of detail and complexity in the illustrations. Some illustrations have larger, open spaces ideal for colorists with visual or health obstacles. Others have a lot of detail within the images, more suitable for when you have time to focus on detail.

The illustrations have all been drawn as double page scenes, except for two. Due to the beautiful binding on this book there is no difficulty in coloring in line art.