Jill Barklem drew Brambly Hedge in watercolor so fine that people have spent forty years reading the pantries rather than the plot. This book hands the line work back. Forty eight pages of her drawings stripped to outline, from the seasonal turn of the hedgerow to the crammed interiors of the mice's homes, waiting for someone else's color.

It is put together as a book rather than a pad. Favorite quotations run through it, small vignettes sit beside full page scenes, and several drawings open across a double page spread. The paper is the part that matters if you actually color: it is smooth and untextured cream stock, chosen so pencil lays down evenly and pen does not feather or bleed, and warm enough that pale colors still read against it.

An adult coloring book that a careful child will also happily take over, and the natural companion to the stories themselves. We carry Spring Story on its own and the four seasons together in A Year in Brambly Hedge.

For a much younger colorist, My Big Summer Coloring Book has over 90 summer pages in thick, widely spaced outlines.