Hansel & Gretel Coloring Book – A Grimm Fable
Hansel & Gretel Coloring Book Video Review
I hope you enjoyed the video review above of the Hansel and Gretel Coloring Book.
Hansel & Gretel – A Grimm Fable Coloring Book
Hansel and Gretel is one of those fairy tales that frightens me. The story of the poor family who left their two children alone in the woods to fend for themselves sends shivers up my spine. Maybe because I grew up in the country, near the woods …but Hansel and Gretel still scares me to this day. The thing I love the most about the story is the cottage! I love the thought of a sweet edible house. I’ve always imagined this house like a giant gingerbread house decorated with candy and lollipops all over. There would me cake pops as flowers in the garden and loads of color everywhere! I would love to nibble the roof and other bits of the house.
The Hansel and Gretel coloring book was originally released in Korean. An English publisher acquired the rights to release the book in English in September 2016. This has made this lovely coloring book for adults more widely available and affordable.
Cover & Layout
The cover is glossy with a pink background. It is decorated with line art of Hansel and Gretel and some florals in black and white. In color, and looking delicious, are an assortment of sweet treats. Beautiful pies, macaroons, cupcakes and doughnuts adorn the page. Makes me hungry just looking at it!
The back cover features line art of Hansel and Gretel. You could color this art work if you wished. You may need to use alcohol based markers to penetrate the gloss of the cover.
The book measures approximately 25cm x 25 cm (10 in x 10 in approximately).
The paper is white medium quality and has a slight texture to it. All images have been orientated in portrait style and the images are printed on both sides of the paper in storybook form.
Ancillary Pages
A title page featuring part of a staircase and urns of leaves commences the book. It would have been a nice touch to see the cover art reproduced here.
Layout
A similar page follows, it features the staircase and urns but Hansel and Gretel and the cottage of sweets has been added to it the art work.
Ten pages of the text of the story, in English follow. Each page is decorated with the same line art featuring arches with columns and floral work. The story has not been modernized, and is in the original prose.
It is a shame, that a keepsake book like this, does not feature a nameplate page.
Illustrations
The drawings have been drawn in a crisp black with a fine weight throughout. This book tends to present a more traditional view of the Hansel and Gretel story with more realistic imagery. Often our fairy tale coloring books depict the imagery in a more “cartoony” and naive style.
The illustrations progress and reflect the story of Hansel and Gretel accurately. We start with the children playing at home, we see the family suffering and going hungry, the desperation of the father and the progress into the woods.
Rosa has created art work that reflects a stage scene from certain points in time in the book. I was half wishing for some of the snippets of text to accompany it because it is so storybook like.
There are a number of very detailed drawings within the book with small images packed in tight places. This may not be suitable for those colorists with visual impairment or health obstacles. however, there are many images that have large open spaces that are suitable for colorists of all skill levels.
There are about 8 pages of “pattern” type imagery in the book to provide variety to the colorist.
Most of the images fill the whole of the page and have background or other elements added to them. A handful of images are without a background and would look great with background effects added in, if you wished.
There are 34 pages of images that are double page scenes. The line art does go to the spine of the book. With some images it will be tricky to access this area but thankfully the book does lay down well with some gentle pushing. Some of the single page designs also run to the spine. In some cases, the images could have been re-positioned without affecting the art but avoiding the spine area of the book.
Bonus
At the end of the book a little extra has been provided. Printed on white glossy, heavy weight paper are three bookmarks for you to color and use. There are also instructions for creating the bookmark which has a flap on it.
Where to buy Hansel & Gretel A Grimm Fable Coloring Book
Happy coloring x
Lea
Wonderful review. So glad you made reference to the visually impaired.
Thank you from a visually impaired colorist.
Connie
Thank you Connie! Vision is a thing with me – as soon as I hit a certain age 🙁 I noticed my sight wasn’t what it was and now I need my magnifying lamp for a lot of things. My father had glaucoma and I know what an obstacle this was for him. Luckily, there’s many books with large spaces, magnifying lamps and thankfully my go to …a color wash 🙂 Happy coloring x