[.ca] Trace a Scene (ISBN 0439425255)

The first of four Chamber of Secrets art coloring books:
Being a Pottermaniac, I have acquired several Harry Potter items that you wouldn't think a grown man would own. This particular item is actually a little surprising to me. When I was a kid, we had coloring books and that was it. Kids today have options I am only now discovering. This is an "art coloring book," one of four related yet quite different books published in conjunction with the release of the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. What you get is thirty-two pages of black and white illustrations (the only color images are on the front and back cover) featuring scenes from the film - but there's more. The book also comes with several sheets of tracing paper, hence the Trace a Scene portion of the title. Rather than touching any of the illustrations in the book, you can lay your tracing paper on top of the image of your choice, trace the lines which appear quite distinctly through the page, and voila - instant art that you can color in all sorts of ways. Why didn't they have this when I was a kid? If you mess up your budding work of art (as I used to do all the time), all you have to do is get another piece of paper and trace the image again. This is a particularly good idea in the case of Harry Potter because this is in many ways a collector's item (albeit a very modestly priced one which will never really be worth anything).