Would intestines be pink or red? – Hive and Nest

I was an avid colorer growing up. I wasn’t a good enough artist to make up my own artwork, I much preferred coloring someone else’s drawings. But not all coloring books are created equal. Even as a 9 year-old I understood that. On the bottom rung were the cheap coloring books featuring manilla paper pages and big boring drawings. To me, the more detail the better. Coloring a big area–a giant Carebear, for example, was not only boring, but wasted a lot of one color of crayon. The best coloring books were from Dover Publishing. Their drawings had tons of details. Plus they assumed that I might have interests other than animated pets and Strawberry Shortcake.

I was totally thrilled to find that Dover still puts out wonderful coloring books. The paper quality is excellent and there are about a thousand different topics. They are all about $4.00 so they are pretty affordable. You can check out their huge selection here.

I bought this coloring books for Arabella because it’s a bunch of old-fashioned farm scenes (I am an armchair farmer and wanna-be Amish. Not for real. Just in my mind. ) Not only that, but the farm in this coloring book really exists in Dearborn, Michigan. I used to go there all the time as a little girl and pretend I really lived there a hundred years ago (see? I’ve always been slightly demented this way).

The drawings are non-cartoony, full of detail, and feature all the aspects of old-fashioned farm life like feeding calfs:

And . . . . . butchering a hog? Who wants to color the bloody entrails?

I’m pretty sure Strawberry Shortcake never did that in a coloring book!