Simply the best Harry Potter colouring book there is? You can bet your Nargles on it...!

 You know what it's like, don't you mums and dads. The prospect of the long summer holiday fills kids with excitement and fills most parents with dread (particularly working parents like us who would absolutely love to spend 6 weeks holiday with their little ones but can't afford to).

Around week 2, most kids enter that weird torpor where they've absolutely no idea what they want to do, so kick around the house bored out of their tiny little skulls.

Books to the rescue then! These two new "Where's Wally" activity titles from Martin Handford and Walker Books are so jam packed with fun things to do, stickers, observation challenges and a ton of other puzzles and activities, that your children will (hopefully) be completely engrossed by them for hour after hour.


"Where's Wally? Across Lands" and "Where's Wally? In Outer Space" cover the surface of the globe and then launch out into the cosmos while we search those busy and exquisitely detailed page spreads for that red-and-white-striped bobble-hatted fella and his friends Wanda, Odlaw and the wizard.

The observation challenges are still as tough as old boots (I think it takes a younger pair of eyes than mine to spot Wally and his pals). There are ace drawing and colouring challenges though, and I can definitely join in with those at least!

Each of the titles features over 100 stickers so once your little ones have exhausted their attempts to find Wally, they can get sticking.

These are fantastic books, we really can't get enough of the detail in these - each illustration truly does reveal something different every time you flick through, and there are so many spot challenges and extra quest items to find, it may well take you the whole 6 weeks to polish both books off completely.

Groovy word searches and colouring fun are dotted throughout the books to keep you busy!

Charlotte's best bit: Wanda is her fave so she always makes a bee line for trying to find her first.

Daddy's favourite bit: These books could well be the answer to your prayers this long summer holiday. If the weather is rubbish or great, grab one (or both) of these and get busy spotting, doodling, solving, colouring and sticking!

(Kindly sent to us for review by Walker Books)

"Where's Wally Across Lands" and "Where's Wally in Outer Space"

Written and Illustrated by Martin Handford

Published by Walker Books

Publication Date: 2nd June 2016

The new trend for fabulous and complex colouring books shows no signs of slowing down and here's an utter beauty...!

Anorak's fabulous "Happy Colouring Poster" - Just try keeping mummy and daddy away!

Hello, it's me, Charlotte! Do your grown ups often steal your colouring pencils and colour your things in when you're not looking, or are asleep, or are playing with Lego or Playmobil instead? Mine do. Mummy likes colouring animals and scenery while Daddy always scribbles away colouring anything with robots or cars in it. Boys eh?

Recently the lovely folk at Anorak Magazine kindly sent me their fabulous (and huge) Happy Colouring Poster to get to work on. As you can see, it's very busy and full of ace things to colour. Here I am getting cracking on it...!

Teddy Bear pencil toppers are a MUST for intense colouring sessions!

The thing is, I kept coming down in the morning to carry on with it - and finding that things I hadn't coloured had mysteriously coloured themselves in! Mummy and Daddy denied all knowledge but I have my suspicions.

The lovely folk at Pictura (Templar) also sent us a fabulous Shaun Tan scene to colour too...!

Picturaline's Shaun Tan range is just too tempting for daddies!

Daddy emitted a loud "Whoop!" when this arrived, and though he promised to let me share colouring it, he's only let me colour in a little bit. He spends far too much time cuddling it and cooing over it (again, boys!). Pictura have lots of brilliant 'grown up' colouring scenes to choose from but I don't see why daddy has to hog it all to himself (perhaps I'll wait till he's 'resting his eyes' and snoring loudly on a sunday afternoon and help him finish it by sneaking off with it!)

Usborne also have one of my favourite colouring books - which we bought to take on holiday with us.

The Usborne Big Book of Drawing, Doodling and Colouring. It is big and they are very clever, those Usborne folk!

There are so many different things to colour in here - mysteriously the page with monsters on it got coloured in while I was asleep. I'm sure you can guess who the culprit was.

So what can us kids do to stop mummy and daddy pinching our colouring pencils and colouring books? Well, christmas is coming and there's always mothers day or fathers day when mummy always moans about getting chocs that make her bum go big, or daddy always moans that he gets Simpsons socks when he doesn't like The Simpsons, so here are a couple of ideas! It might just work and might just stop their extremely rude behaviour!

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)