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Adding your own color to The Pilgrim's Progress

There's a pop book, a children's choir musical and several board games, but one way to capture a young reader is to offer them the change to color in the illustrations of The Pilgrim's Progress.


A few instances from my shelves jump out: Paul and Stephanie Cox's Pilgrim's Progress: A Poetic Journey is a little adaptation I really like actually for the color that they provide. They have also produced a full coloring in version of the same for the young or old hand to configure to taste.




The red, deluxe version of Little Pilgrim's Big Journey has a coloring book, as well as stickers and a map.






Day One produced an activity booklet which also invites coloring in, as well as cutting out and glueing!





My favorite is this 1990s abridged copy of PP. It comes with an extensive introduction to Bunyan with the author's own photographs. The text is the seventeenth century language but edited to keep a flow of action for the reader. The fun features I observe are:

  • the cover art: the visual lands this in the realm of an iconic Star Wars generation (and given Bunyan's dependence on Hebrews would fit nicely with this video segment);



  • the preservation of the marginal references which are given with full biblical text from the KJV;



  • the generous and joyous scope of the illustrations to be colored, including this double page spread for Vanity Fair:


Of course, it's not obvious that any of these adaptations are really intended for children, or certainly not children only. Perhaps they fit the genre of adult coloring in that has exploded in the last few years!

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