Title: Sydney
Author: Janis & Marshall Rice
Publisher: Ricecheks Books
ISBN: 979-8-89395-672-6
Pages: 20
Genre: Children’s Coloring Book
Reviewer: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
Children love to draw, and as a tool to learn hand-eye coordination are coloring books, which enable children to enhance their skills. Janis & Marshall Rice, the creators of Sydney, made a simple yet effective book enabling children to imagine how a bulldozer’s day of moving dirt and making things may look in color.
Using geometric lines and repetitive outlines of a bulldozer named Sydney, children are instructed to use dry erasable markers to fill in the voids of the illustrations with color. I imagine Caterpillar yellow would prevail for the bulldozer, and red for the trail signal and of course red-yellow-green for the traffic light. The story is about a day in the world of Sydney, leaving its garage, crossing the train tracks, going through the traffic signal’s intersection, then on to work. What does Sydney build? Perhaps a pool, maybe a Zoo, or whatever a child wants to imagine, as the ending allows for open space for drawing without outlines.
In the age of computer-generated graphics, getting back to the fundamental hand-eye coloring is important for all children’s brain development. The creators of Sydney point out that either gender can drive a bulldozer, so it is not necessarily a boy’s book. The simplicity of the graphics allows for the youngest of children to learn to “stay between the lines” with their coloring, and the reusable markers can be cleaned off the pages easily. Just as Sydney’s day repeats itself, so does the ability of children to repetitively develop their drawing skills.
Sydney is a fine book to be given to a young child for a birthday or holiday, or even a baby-shower present. Paper and color markers need to be practiced, and the personified bulldozer is a perfect way for kids to imagine how operating such a novel machine would feel like. Dig in with Sydney the bulldozer! This adorable coloring book for children features large, easy-to-color pictures of Sydney hard at work. Created by Janis & Marshall Rice, Sydney is perfect for little hands, big imaginations, and hours of creative play.
