Coloring book

Educational uses

Coloring books are widely used in schooling for young children for various reasons. For example, children are often more interested in coloring books rather than using other learning methods; pictures may also be more memorable than simply words. Coloring may also increase creativity in painting, according to some research.

As a predominantly non-verbal medium, coloring books have also seen wide applications in education where a target group does not speak and understand the primary language of instruction or communication. Examples of this include the use of coloring books in Guatemala to teach children about hieroglyphs and Mayan artist patterns, and the production of coloring books to educate the children of farm workers about "the pathway by which agricultural pesticides are transferred from work to home." Coloring books are also said to help to motivate students' understanding of concepts that they would otherwise be uninterested in.

They have been used as teaching aids for developing creativity and knowledge of geometry, such as in Roger Burrows' Altair Designs.

Since the 1980s, several publishers have produced educational coloring books intended for studying graduate-level topics such as anatomy and physiology, where color-coding of many detailed diagrams are used as a learning aid. Examples include The Anatomy Coloring Book and subsequent book series, by Wynn Kapit and Lawrence Elson, published by HarperCollins (1990s) and Benjamin Cummings (2000s). There are some examples of educators using coloring books to better explain complicated topics, like programming.

Some publishers have specialized in coloring books with an explicit educational purpose, both for children and for adults. The books often have extensive text accompanying each image. These publishers include Dover Books, Really Big Coloring Books, Running Press, and Troubador Press.

Health and therapeutic uses

Coloring books have seen wide application in the health professions as educational tools. One nurse, trying to limit the trauma of surgery, described in an academic publication how the use of a coloring book "might help [the child] to understand what was going to happen to him." They are also used in rehabilitation of accident victims to aid recovery of hand–eye coordination, and they are used with autistic children both for entertainment and for their soothing effect. Coloring books have been used to explain complicated medical conditions to children. One of the appeals of adult coloring books is that they help users relax and de-stress.

Political uses

In 1962, cartoonist Mort Drucker teamed with humorist Paul Laikin in creating the John F. Kennedy Coloring Book, a satirical introduction to Kennedy, his family and administration, told from the point of view of his daughter Caroline. The book sold 2,500,000 copies.

In 1968 the Black Panther Coloring Book began circulating in the United States; the book features black men and children killing pigs dressed as police officers. It was argued to have been made not by the Black Panther Party but by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO program to discredit the organization, a claim which other sources dispute.

The term and concept of the "coloring book" was adopted by the feminist artist Tee Corinne as a tool of female empowerment. Corinne made pencil sketches of female genitalia, which she then inked and printed on card stock. She published a collection of them in 1975 as The Cunt Coloring Book.

No other name seemed really to fit, although the word "cunt" was not one with which I was particularly comfortable. The alliteration, though, was nice. I also liked the idea of combining a street term for genitalia with a coloring book, because both are ways that, as children, we get to know the world.

In August 2011, American publisher Really Big Coloring Books released We Shall Never Forget: The Kids Book of Freedom detailing specific drawings in the accounting of SEAL Team 6 shooting Osama bin Laden in his home. The book was criticized by some for portraying Muslims in a negative manner. The company has also published The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids, Ted Cruz To The Future (2013) and a book about President Barack Obama's first inauguration (2008).

Fine art

Photographer Jno Cook produced line drawings based on Robert Frank's The Americans, and in 1983 published them in a limited edition as The Robert Frank Coloring Book. In 1994, the National Gallery of Art used the images as party favors for writers working on the catalog for a retrospective of Frank's work.

Adult coloring books

Coloring books are a form of adult therapy that saw a growth in popularity in the 2010s. They reportedly bring people a sense of their childhood, and help with developing fine motor skills and vision, reducing anxiety and creating focus, and relieving stress and anxiety in a manner similar to meditation. Concentrating on coloring may facilitate the replacement of negative thoughts and images with pleasant ones. Coloring books can be used in daily activities. The books are also a way to get away from technology, which some may regard as beneficial to people's health. They can also be used by people who aren't as comfortable with other extremely expressive forms of art.

While coloring books for adults were popular in the early 1960s, those were satirical works rather than the therapeutic works that define the adult coloring book form today. The first commercially successful adult coloring books were published in 2012 and 2013, and began increasing in popularity in 2015. In April of that year, Johanna Basford brought out two coloring books titled Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest, which became the top sellers at Amazon. By November it was reported by Amazon.ca that the books were the most top wished for items with nine of the top ten consisting of such books. Also that month Crayola began offering its own line of adult coloring books. Publishers also began packaging some of their coloring books with pencils and CDs to support the enjoyment of this activity. In 2016, Faber-Castell, a worldwide color pencil supplier, was reported to have trouble keeping up with demand for their products due to the craze, while Blue Star Coloring sold over a million titles in one year. The scale of the trend in the United States began to decrease by the end of 2016. As of 2025, content featuring adult coloring books were part of the "cozy coloring" trend on TikTok.

Adult coloring books are offered digitally, via ebooks, digital apps, and coloring pages that can be colored online or downloaded. Users' digital work-products can be saved and shared. Dominic Bulsuto theorized that the trend of digital purchasing helped the spread of the genre, noting that the relative anonymous nature of the act allowed customers to feel more secure perusing books they would be embarrassed to buy in real life.

Criticism

Author Susan Jacoby has criticized adult coloring books, along with the popularity among adults of young adult fiction, as "an artifact of a broader cultural shift. And that cultural shift is a bad thing". She believes the Great Recession has contributed to this shift, as adults unable to find employment have moved home to live with their parents. New York City futurist and blogger Dominic Basulto describes adult coloring book fans as "stuck in The Shallows, mindfully coloring books to counter the existential angst of living in a digital society". He goes on to say that "...the endless Internet parade of silly cat photos, infantile comments and adolescent memes has dumbed us down". However, Basulto ultimately sees the trend as a good thing, noting that adults are increasingly buying books they want to buy, rather than books they are supposed to buy.

Coloring book software

Coloring books can also be found digitally in the form of coloring book websites and applications. Coloring book software often has features such as color mixing, flood filling, and paintbrush tools that allow for more accurate and detailed drawings than regular coloring books.

Notable artists

• Johanna Basford
• Ruth Heller