Kokeshi Dolls / Dolls of the World by Jessica Secheret (Blue Apple Books)

This rather smashing pair of books, packed full of sticker fun and colouring pages have that magic effect on Charlotte of keeping her completely absorbed for hours on end. At the moment she's absolutely bonkers about anything to do with drawing, colouring and stickering so Jessica Secheret's books "Kokeshi Dolls" and "Dolls of the World" are excellent value.

Kokeshi Dolls

These collectable Japanese dolls come in all shapes and sizes, and this book celebrates the collectable phenomenon with brilliant colouring pages, letting your child's imagination and fashion design skills loose.

The stickers can be used in each scene to compliment the outfits and your child's colouring skills, and there are more than enough to use in their own drawings once they've finished with the book.






Dolls of the World

During the summer, we were driven practically out of our minds by "It's a Small World" at Disneyland Paris. Every time Charlotte heard that 'Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock' we had to go on the ride and sit through that earworm tune. In fact just typing about it, I can hear that happy little ditty.

"Dolls of the World" instantly reminded Charlotte of the "It's a Small World" ride and she loved all the various national costumes, and the scenes from countries around the world.

I've a small niggle about this book, just a minor one, the scenes and characters were often so big that it was rather difficult to find room for the stickers included with the book. Each set of stickers had a specific page they 'belonged' to, but Charlotte (being a little perfectionist) didn't want to stick the stickers over any other elements of the page. Just a small drawback but again the stickers can be used in children's own drawings so it's still a nice book.

A great duo of activity books that are excellent quality and educational too.

Charlotte's best bit: She really loved the Norwegian girl ("She is me!") and Mio, the pink Kokeshi Doll.

Daddy's favourite bit: The sheer silence accompanying Charlotte's complete and utter absorption in these two books, broken only by her asking questions about the various costumes and countries in the Dolls of the World book.

Charlotte gets busy colouring in costumes from Egypt.

(Books kindly supplied to us for review by Blue Apple Books / Mat Archer)