22 Adorably cute designs printed on one side of non-perforated paper

Shades of Kawaii: A Cute Colouring Book

By: Miss Wah

Rating: 5 of 5

This is a book of 22 really cute and fun designs. The Kawaii in the title is the Japanese word for cute or adorable and that is certainly what this is. For some who may have some difficulty with spelling, like at least two members of my family, the island in Hawaii is spelled Kauai. When I shared that I had bought this book, they thought it was going to be a book about the island. While they may have been disappointed, I certainly was not. The designs are really cute and remind me of Hello Kitty type of cuteness. There are happy smiling characters all around. It’s the type of coloring book that brings a smile to your face.

The designs are printed on one side of fairly thin paper. The pages are white and are not perforated. The designs have a framing line around them and stop short of the bound edge, so you can use a penknife to cute pages out if you so wish. The binding is glued rather than sewn.

All of my markers had issues with this paper. The best were my Stabilo 88 which only left a shadow on the backside of the page. I could still tell what color it was. Surprisingly, my Staedler fineliners seeped right through. My gel pens did not leak through but I could see a shadow of color. My coloring pencils all worked excellently with the paper. I suggest putting a thicker piece of backing paper or chipboard under the page you are working on to make sure that any ink doesn’t ruin the page behind it.

I’m starting to add a note to publishers/artists about how the book could be improved. We should keep in mind that improvements probably will add to the cost of the book, so it is one of those be careful what you wish for scenarios. In this particular case, the publisher is CreateSpace, which is actually owned by Amazon. As so many independent artists use this publisher, I’m hoping that some improvements can be made without too much additional cost.

In this case, the publishing of the book could be improved in two ways: 1) make the pages perforated. Making it easier to remove the page to color makes life easier for many colorists; and 2) improve the paper quality so that ink doesn’t leak through.