Beautiful Christmas -- coloring book review

Thank you Ancient Faith Publishing for providing the coloring book Beautiful Christmas for review.

Coloring is not just a great way to practice fine motor skills but it is also a wonderful tool for exercising your brain. When you color you develop planning skills and build your creativity muscles. My special needs daughter is developmentally delayed both cognitively and physically. While chronologically outside the intended age range of 5-12 this coloring book was perfect for where she is developmentally.

From the back the cover:

Beautiful Christmas is a 64-page coloring book for children aged 5-12. As they color Christ in the cave or the shepherds glorifying God with the angels, they are cultivating their own sensibility to beauty while learning to recognize some of the meaningful symbols, elements, and motifs of the Church. May this small book bless those children who color and create within its pages.

I love the wide variety of coloring pages.  Some pictures have larger coloring spaces making it easier for those who are younger or have less developed fine motor skills and need a bigger space to practice staying in the lines.  Others are more detailed with smaller spaces and delicate designs that require more patience and fine motor skill to complete.  This is also great for children who can color an easy page one day and then work on a more difficult page another just as we sometimes read easier books just for fun and then at other times read more challenging books that cause us to grow.

Along with variations in the coloring spaces and details, we discovered icon coloring pages, coloring pages for St. Nicholas, St. Lucia, and Gabriel as well as some wonderful general Christmas pictures such as Christmas trees.  These pages were tucked in with Orthodox Christmas scenes such as Mary and Joseph setting out on the journey to Bethlehem, the animals in the cave, the wise men, and even the flight into Egypt.

Many of the coloring pages are captioned.  The captions sparked discussions.  "Mama we sing that at Christmas!"

In addition, there are several mazes throughout the book.  My daughter loves mazes.  I love that these are included because they also help exercise the brain and strengthen fine motor skills, eye tracking, and planning! 

When Supergirl was looking through the coloring book she got excited when she saw St. Nicholas.  She pointed at his picture. I expected her to choose to color St. Nicholas first but she chose Mary riding on the donkey for her first picture and the angel coming to Joseph in a dream as her second.

The quality of the coloring book is excellent! It has a very sturdy cover.  My complaint though is that the binding makes it difficult for the book to lay flat for coloring.  I just bent it back to loosen the binding to help it lay more flat.  This made it easier for Supergirl to color the pages on the left.

I asked Supergirl what she thought, and she said: "It is different."  I also asked her what it made her think of and she said, "Christmas Eve." 

We are enjoying the coloring book.  This is an excellent choice for a Christmas gift that reminds children of why we celebrate this wonderful holiday.  Check it out the Beautiful Christmas coloring book at the Ancient Faith Publishing Store!