Coloring Books
Buy and sell coloring books in Panama.
Coloring books run from chunky outlines a toddler attacks with a fistful of crayons to adult books of mandalas worked over weeks with fine pens. Panama has a small shelf of its own: mandalas drawn from the country’s wildlife and patterns taken from Guna molas, many of them self-published by local illustrators. A new copy makes an easy present, and a pre-owned one is worth having when most of its pages are still white. Adult books in particular are often given, started and set aside, which is where the good second-hand ones come from.
Crayon books, paint-with-water books and adult mandalas:
each is made for a different hand and a different tool. Books for the youngest have thick outlines and one big shape to a page, and many come with a box of crayons tucked inside. Paint-with-water books carry a palette of dried color printed into the book: the child wets a brush, rubs the palette and paints, so the book is spent once the palette is. Older children move on to Pokémon or Spider-Man books and color-by-number. Adult books are another object: dense mandalas and botanical panels on heavier paper, meant for colored pencils or fine liners. A child who has just colored a red-eyed tree frog may want to see the real one in animal books, and an adult who keeps coloring toucans is one step from a bird guide in outdoor books.
Panamanian wildlife and mola designs on the page:
a handful of books are drawn here, and they are the ones to find if you want more than unicorns. Local illustrators and authors have self-published books that turn Panamanian animals into mandalas, and mola designs suit coloring naturally, because a mola is itself built from cut outlines and fields of solid color. Most of these titles are printed on demand abroad, on standard print-on-demand paper printed on both sides of each sheet unless the designer left the backs blank. Find out which before you reach for markers.
Paper and binding in an adult coloring book:
together they decide whether the book suits the pens you own. Alcohol markers soak through almost any paper, so for markers you want pages printed on one side only. Colored pencils need a little tooth, and on a slick coated page they skate. Perforated pages let a finished piece come out for framing, and a spiral or lay-flat binding lets you reach the inner edge of a picture without cracking the spine.
Unopened adult books and half-colored bundles:
price works very differently at the two ends. A children’s book with crayons or a paint palette runs around $6 or $7 new in Panama, and an adult book by a known illustrator nearer $15 to $20. A child’s book that has been worked through is worth very little on its own, and three or four sold together are what catches a parent’s eye. An adult book still in its wrapping is a present that was never started. Nothing separates it from a new copy, so it can ask close to the new price, and a scuffed cover is the only reason to take less.
Dried palettes, melted crayons and colored-in pages:
a second-hand coloring book hides its use in the middle. Children seldom start at the front, so turn every page rather than the first few. In a paint-with-water book, look at the palette: where the color has been rubbed away, those pictures can only be painted with paints of your own. Hold double-sided pages up to the light for marker that has ghosted through from the reverse, which spoils both sides. If crayons come with the book, open the box: wax left in a parked car in the Panamanian sun softens and fuses into one lump.
Gift duplicates, outgrown stacks and books you drew yourself:
most coloring books worth listing come from one of those three. For the first two, say how many pages are still white, photograph the cover, a clean interior page and any colored ones, and say whether the paper is printed on one side. Children’s books go better grouped by age. If you illustrate and print your own, show a couple of interior pages at full size and say whether the backs are blank, since that is what a marker user decides on. A parent coming in from Penonomé to collect a bundle will leaf through it on the spot, so keep each book together with the crayons or brush it came with.