Do you hate your children? Are you currently looking for presents for them, even though Christmas has been and gone? You could do a lot worse than Egmont’s Star Wars offerings: the Poster Activity Book, Colouring Book and the papercraft Build a Droid book.
All three are cheap (nothing more than a tenner), inoffensive, and likely to keep your child quiet on a rainy day. We certainly remember this tactic working on us when we were children. It’s also a good way to get children on board with the new characters if they weren’t already. The Poster Activity Book combines removable posters with word searches, maze puzzles and even a simplified form of Sudoku. Y’know, traditional puzzles. As for the colouring book… well, there’s not much to say about the colouring book. It’s a book. With Star Wars drawings. That you colour in. (Three years at the Academy for Arts Reviewers for this?)
The most interesting product here is the Build a Droid book. It’s designed to get youngsters thinking all crafty in an effort to build one or all of C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 out of thickened card and making use of instructions. The instructions are very bare bones, so be prepared to actually get involved when your children are making these. Best let them do the actual assembly though as it requires small hands and might be a bit too fiddly for adults. It was certainly too fiddly for us – we gave up after another sodding tab snapped off R2’s stupid cylinder body. At least the resulting head is small enough to chuck out of the window in frustration.
It is, if nothing else, a decent selection of products. None of these would be a beloved present handed down for generations, but then nobody was expecting them to be. Great to keep your kids quiet, or to give to a nephew you are ambivalent about.
STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS BUILD A DROID / STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS COLOURING BOOK / STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS POSTER ACTIVITY BOOK / PUBLISHER: EGMONT / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
(Each sold separately)
