Winter Wonderland by Paper&Cloth Studios

5/12/2015

Summary
Current Price: £4.99
Number of Pages: 80
Size: 25 x 25cm
Paper colour: White
Paper surface: Smooth
Paper thickness: Good
Linework: Fine
Perforated: No
One sided: No
Binding: Glue
Drawings go into the spine: Yes
Waterbased pen bleed: None

This is a book I've seen everywhere lately, from the window display at Waterstones to the supermarket shelf. It is made by the award-winning illustrators at Paper&Cloth Studios, who exhibit all over the world and work with big names like Boden and M&S, so straight away I'm expecting quality!

Firstly, I have to mention my first impressions of the cover. This large, square format book has a matte monochrome dust jacket with embossed, ice blue glitter on the title and speckled over various parts of the design. It's just lovely to run your hand across and feel the texture of the glitter, and the sparkle gives it such a stylish feel.

With a title like Winter Wonderland, release at this time of year and such a frosty, befitting cover, I was expecting to open it up and find a glorious land of shaggy cold-climate animals, bare trees, strings of Christmas lights, cosy fireplaces and children frolicking in the snow. I am so disappointed by what I found after such a promising start! The title is very misleading in my opinion, as very few images actually depict winter to me. For a start, everything is leafy! I don't associate winter with lush leafy trees, yet pretty much EVERYTHING in this book is made of them. Lots of the animals are not what I would consider wintry, in fact I would've called this book Spring Surprise or something similar, with the amount of flowers, leaves, butterflies and birds there are.

Don't get me wrong. As you can see for yourself the illustrations are beautiful, that's undeniable- it's just not what I would label a winter wonderland. Of course, there are elements of it that match the theme: snowflakes, baubles, a few Christmas tree shapes... but that's really all I would personally class as fitting. It's a gorgeous book, just make sure you know what to expect (when buying online you may not be able to look inside).

The paper is fairly thick and there is no bleed from waterbased pens, which is handy as all the pages are double-sided. It's difficult to get the book laying flat, and seeing as the double page spreads go into the spine you may have a bit of trouble getting to the centre part of the illustrations. There is a LOT of detail in the book and some of the spaces are tiny, but for the most part normal felt tips should suffice.

Overall, I'd say the book is lovely (albeit VERY leafy!) and probably wouldn't be a regretted purchase if you ordered it without knowing. I just think it had massive potential to live up to its name and fell short of what I expected.

Here's my finished picture, one of the inside cover images.