Over ninety pages to color in a book of ninety six, which is the difference between an afternoon and a whole summer. The outlines are thick, simple and widely spaced, drawn by Jenny Addison and Emily Ritson for a three year old who is still learning to keep a crayon inside a line.

Each opening is a small joke or a sequence rather than a page of unrelated objects, and the captions are printed in the same hand drawn lettering. A cat carries a surfboard under a line about catching some waves, and a rabbit sails past on the facing page. A bucket, a spade and a starfish are captioned Dig, dig, dig, and the sandcastle opposite is finished, flags and all. Two patterned surfboards stand in the sand under Surf's up, and a bear waves from the door of a campervan that has been a lot of places. Even a wet day gets a turn: an umbrella on the left, a child jumping in a puddle on the right.

Eight and a half inches by nearly ten, so the drawings are big enough for a fist grip and a fat crayon. Written by Alice James for the Usborne My Big Coloring series.

Paperback, 96 pages including over 90 coloring pages, 8.5 by 9.8 in (216 by 250 mm), by Alice James, illustrated by Jenny Addison and Emily Ritson. Usborne Publishing Ltd., May 2026. ISBN-13 9781836053774. Publisher age guidance: 3 and up.

Wipe-Clean Summer Activities covers the same season with a pen that rubs off, so the pages can be done again. Little Coloring Things That Go is the other Usborne coloring book on the shelf, for a child who would rather have trucks than sandcastles.

For an older colorist at the same table, Brambly Hedge: Festive Coloring Book holds 48 pages of Jill Barklem's fine line work on smooth cream stock.

My Big Happy Coloring Book is the same large format and the same thick outlines, with over 90 pages of animals and outdoor scenes instead of a summer setting.