A Imaginative take on A Christmas Carol in Coloring Book Format – printed on both sides of non-perforated paper

Escape to Christmas Past is the first coloring book I have by Good Wives and Warriors (artists Becky Bolton and Louise Chappell.) It is a lovely little book (at approximately 7.5 x 7.25 inches) which packs a lot into its smaller format. It has 56 pages of coloring opportunities and the style is of a very elegant and old-fashioned English Christmas as envisioned in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The designs are imaginative and have intricate elements which will be a lot of fun to color. While the title mentions Christmas Past, the book seems to focus more on Christmas Present and Christmas Future. It is simply a wonderful Christmas coloring experience and I am really pleased with the designs in the book.

The designs are printed on both sides of heavyweight cream colored non-perforated paper. Twenty-six of the designs spread across two pages. In my book, these two page designs line up very well.

The attached cover of the book is well made and has gold foil, black, and red touches. You can color the remainder of the cover (front and back) if you wish. The inside of the cover has fold-outs (front and back) and a white on red line print which you can also color. The rest of the pages are designs, so you can literally color this book on every page, if you choose to do so. The binding is sewn rather than glued, so removing pages will require a few snips of threads every few pages. I won’t be taking mine apart as I think it is a lovely little book that tells a story that I want to keep together.

My alcohol-based markers bled through immediately. None of my ultra-fine point water-based markers bled through but you could see the fainest of shadows on the backside of the page when I used really dark colors (both Stabilo 88 and Staedler triplus fineliners.) My gel pens did not bleed through and did not need extra drying time. All of my coloring pencils did well and performed as I would expect for the brand and type.

This is one of the prettiest of small coloring books I have in my collection. It is extremely portable and fits in my purse well. I think it is a fantastic gift (along with some coloring pencils and a manual inexpensive sharpener) for anyone who likes to color or who wants to start. It has intricate details but nothing that should prove frustrating.