A New Colouring Book - Animal Rhymes A–Z
New Release
Twenty-six animals, one rhyme on every page, and thick outlines made for small hands - Animal Rhymes A-Z is a real book that you can hold.
There is a new book on my shelf this week, and this one you can hold.
Animal Rhymes A–Z is a colouring book of twenty-six animals, one for every letter of the alphabet, and every one of them is waiting for your crayons.
I have wanted to make one since the free printable went up on this site. A colouring page is a quiet sort of thing - a child sits down, their hands are busy, and their mouth keeps going. That is my favourite hour of the day, and twenty-six pages of it seemed like a good idea.
What is inside
- 26 big, bold animal drawings to colour in
- A four-line rhyme on every page, to read aloud together
- Thick, clear outlines and plenty of white space
- Made for little hands, ages 2 to 5
- Landscape pages, one animal to a page, with nothing running off the edge
From Alfie the Alligator to Ziggy the Zebra, with a bear, an elephant, a koala, an owl, a penguin, a quokka, a whale and a yak in between. No animal needs more than a handful of shapes, so a small child can colour with confidence instead of getting lost in the detail.
Why the rhyme stayed
A colouring page with nothing to read is a nice way to pass twenty minutes. A colouring page with a rhyme on it does two jobs at once. You read the 4 lines together, then the crayons come out and the animal gets its colours.
The rhymes are short, and the last line is easy to join in with, which matters more than it sounds - the moment a child can finish your sentence, they are reading, even if they would not call it that.
If you want more of that, I keep a list of twelve questions to ask while you read together, and most of them work just as well over a colouring page.
Colouring and reading, side by side
I wrote about this properly when the free printable went up - why colouring helps early reading. The short version is grip, direction, naming things, and owning a character. A child who has spent half an hour colouring an owl knows that owl, and will listen differently when the owl turns up in a story.
If you would like to try before you buy
The free printable is still free, and it always will be, six A4 pages with Cuddles the koala, Penny the platypus, a seven-band rainbow, a full moon and a cover to colour and sign. You can download it here, no signup, and print a page at a time rather than all six at once.
Animal Rhymes A–Z is the bigger thing - twenty-six animals, a rhyme on every page, printed on proper white paper with outlines thick enough for a chunky crayon and a pencil both.
Where to find it
It is a paperback, published this week. [Find Animal Rhymes A–Z on Amazon.co.uk or, on Amazon.com if you are in the States - and if you would like to see everything else I have written, the children's books are here.
If you do buy a copy, I would love to know which animal your child coloured first. Mine would be the koala, every time.
Twenty-six animals. One letter at a time.