A month ago I hadn’t even heard of adult colouring books. Now they’re everywhere – including the WH Smith concession at London’s Heathrow airport.
Marketed on the ‘mindfulness’ ticket, adult colouring books sell at way over the odds in comparison to a kid’s equivalent (around £7.99).
What extras do you get in the adult version that justifies the mark-up?
Well not much, apart from an intro to the books by a bona fide Buddhist, some Sanskrit buzz words strewn around like lotus petals, and – in case Eastern belief systems are too out-there for you – some European validation for the book’s concept by way of Carl Jung.
Admittedly, the geometric fractal patterns in the Zen colouring book are pretty cool. They make the ‘sacred circles’ of the Mandala one seem a bit limited by comparison.
The big downside with all these books though is that they come without any colouring-in implements. The only ones I could find had to be bought separately in a kids pastel-coloured four-pack.
To benefit fully from the well-being promised in the books intros, I’d like to see the publishers selling their grown-up colouring books with psychedelic highlighter pens. As anyone on the eightfold path will tell you, the only way to reach samādhi via the medium of colouring books is to go at the shapes with some heavy duty day-glo.
Some alternative suggestions for mindful travellers:
- If you’ve got a burning desire to colour in stuff on the plane, get a kids colouring book. As a grown adult you’re going to look like a tit doing it anyway, so you may as well save yourself a fiver in the process. At least with the kids’ version you’ll only elicit pity from fellow travellers, not scorn.
- Fake a kid – or fake an extra kid. Most airlines give out colouring-in freebies on long-haul. They come with a decent pencil selection too.
- When you’re in a book shop, buy a book you can read. One that some writer’s given two years of their life to – you’ll be serving a greater good.
- Meditate. It’s free.
mother puss bucket 