Customer Reviews

Airplanes of the Second World War Coloring Book (Dover History Coloring Book)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My two sons have spent hours pouring over these pages, and working very hard to make their planes look like the originals. First coloring book my 10 y/o has ever wanted to use!

This is a very easy book to color and a lot of fun. Although the author gives detailed coloring instructions in the captions, they may be a bit challenging if one is not familiar with parts of the plane. I found an excellent site on the internet which provided me with small color images of many of the planes, which helped a lot. The site is: www.aviation-central.com
The book is a "must" for any military aviation enthusiast who also likes to color.

If your child is a WWII plane enthusiast they will love this coloring book. Not only is it fun to color but it is also very interesting to read. There is a lot of detail in each picture. We gave this to our 5 year old for Christmas, he loves to color the pictures but he also loves to have me read it to him.

You might think it odd that a middle-aged man might buy a coloring book for himself. However, I bought this book due to a fascination with WW2 fighter planes I used to build as a boy. And I didn't want to have to buy and rebuild the models again to capture the nostalgia and fascination I felt as a youth. The models have long since disappeared from my personal belongings, but the idea of a coloring book with the major ones to look at for a very low price, was too hard to resist.

The coloring book met my expectations by providing VERY realistic coloring pages of WW2 fighters apparently based on actual planes. If you include two full-color planes on the and rear covers, there are 13 color pictures, as well as about 46 black and white coloring pages of fighters, bombers, and cargo planes from the mid 1930's forward that were used in WWII.

The pages are printed on a heavy, high quality paper, and each fighter has a paragraph or so of background information at the bottom of the coloring page. Information isn't consistent for each plane, but usually covers the number of each plane produced, their nationality, when they were used in the war, any conversions they underwent, as well their performance against other planes during their era. There is usually a paragraph indicating the colors used on each part of the airplane. The one-page, text-only preface to the book describes the explosion of aircraft-building in the 1930's and 1940's, and describes a couple key planes used to turn the tide in WW2.

I agree with a previous reviewer that to color the planes properly, one needs to understand the anatomy of a plane -- the author assumes you know this, so there is no explanation given. Therefore, I appreciate the site listed by a previous reviewer that describes the parts of the plane.

Overall, I love this coloring book, really enjoyed seeing the planes whose model numbers I still remember from my boyhood, and reading about their history. I may even get out the pencil crayons to color and perhaps frame a couple of them -- or -- much to the chagrine of the my wife, start rebuilding my collection of painted model planes all over again :)

Just a quick note about this book. I needed a good but easy reference on WWII aircraft. I have used Dover books in the past. They remain the best in this price range available.

The book is very well done. The aircraft depicted are done so realistically. My grandkids love coloring in this book. It's great for kids of all ages.