Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book: 1 Paperback – Coloring Book, 1 April 2013

The level of detail & scale was a bit of a shock! Not sure I've managed to break out the 4mm nib felt pens - firmly stuck with 1mm fine liners! Pencil crayons also work well. Wax crayons or thick felt tips - nope!The vast majority of the book is very very small scale intricate shapes - not for someone who struggles to stay inside the lines or has poor eyesight/ poor light (I will be buying a magnifying glass, my eyes are too old for the tiniest scale bits). That said, there's a couple of pages which are large scale. And I really like that some themes are developed from small scale to bigger scale (like the fish in the pond, there's a very symmetrical detailed bird's eye view one with lots of fish, opposite an underwater with 2 large fish page). I like the contrast, it makes it all feel very fresh even after you've coloured them in.There's a Key to all the different little elements like insects & keys & treasure chest etc at the front telling you how many of each in the whole book and a Key at the back telling you how many of each element are in specfic pages. I particularly like that there's a few mazes to colour in, and also designs where there's a fully drawn bit that dwindles down to suggest where you might like to draw your own version in the huge blank spaces. The book works just as well if you only colour in what's there because the design placing is very well done.The whole book is beautifully thought out and the paper has a really nice feel to it - which has left me a bit confused because with the fine liners it's almost like blotting paper - taking everything else into account, I'm really surprised you get show through from one side to the other (all pages are double sided with designs). If I hold the pen down that little bit too long, the paper sucks the ink up. There's an enormous number of pages in there, superb value for money, but the designs are SO good that if it really bothered me that it leaked through, I wouldn't be able to choose which to do and would have to buy 2 books!I love the white card dust cover that is printed both sides - extra space to colour is always a bonus! The inner design is larger scale that the outer design. You could also colour the outside of the brown cover (with monochrome).All in all probably the most exciting & fun colouring book I've ever seen. Really it gets 6 stars!

This book is really beautiful and there is more than colouring to it. My daughter enjoys the treasure hunt and I love just looking at all the pages. We can easily share the colouring, even on one page as there are plenty of details. It is a bit difficult for her as she is just 5 years old but that doesn't discourage her and even if she gets tired of it, after a while she keeps returning. This is the first colouring book that she hasn't finished in a flash and forgotten. Having written that I should also mention that she loves drawing and colouring and is quite patient when it comes to these activities so I would say it's appropriate for ages 5years-adult, however my 8-year-old son is not interested at all (he likes to make things, colouring bores him).There are all sorts of things you could find in a garden here: from flowers, leaves, trees, bugs and birds to fish in a pond, shed, spade, wheelbarrow full of pumpkins and basket overflowing with apples. There is plenty to talk about with a child and it's really pleasurable imagining together what might be behind the garden gate.We've given this book as a present and it was thouroughly enjoyed each time.I'm really happy we've found this Secret Garden and would heartily recommend it.

This book is so gorgeous I had to write a review. The pictures are gorgeous. It goes on and on. Plenty to do. Paper is top quality. Thick and smooth. The crayons glide. Oh I am so happy I bought it. Think I paid 9.99 and you get a lot of picture for your money. Buy it if you love adult colouring. I can’t wait to get started.

Please note that this book has been reprinted a number of times. The version I bought on 15/5/15 has high-quality paper, and there is no trace of ink bleeding through to the other (printed) side of each page. Even IF you get a version with the thinner paper, there are more than forty pages, eighty sides of pictures to colour, so if you only coloured half of the designs, then at just under a tenner, each single-side design is costing you less that 25p. With the better quality paper, that drops to 12p per side.What is great about this book is that Johanna gives you space to add your own inky drawings to hers - if you want to! One page will have a circular or square design in the centre, the opposite page will have the edges filled, with a matching circular or square white space in the middle. Some designs flow over two pages, with white space around the design for your own additions. What this does is allow you to leave that white space - it gives the designs room to breathe, while most colouring books fill each page, edge to edge, which makes them look a little chaotic. This white space, I find, makes this book even more relaxing to complete. Johanna adds typed suggestions to the incomplete pages, but even this is done in a sympathetic way, with old-style typeface, random letter sizes and the text flowing along the edge of the existing design. The text becomes part of the artwork, rather than having an ugly block of text in one corner.The book is flowers, trees and animals - you'll need plenty of shades of green! The basis is on reality - many of these books have the internal spaces of animals filled with a giddy mass of geometric lines and patterns, just to add complexity to the drawings. None of that here, thankfully.If this is your first foray into the world of adult colouring book, I really can't think of a better introduction.