Animals in Kodomo no Kuni

It’s time for the annual #ColorOurCollections, hosted by the New York Academy of Medicine! Each year libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world share free coloring sheets based on their collections.We’ve shared birds and alphabets, but this year we just wanted…CUTE ANIMALS. So we delved into our vaults for Kodomo no kuni (The Land of Children), a Japanese children’s magazine that was in circulation from 1922-1944. It did not disappoint!

You can find our awesome coloring pages here, and you can read more about the magazine in this excellent post on Cotsen’s curatorial blog. If you’re still hankering for cute animals, try some of our blog projects, starting with this bouncy bunny cup!

Or fancy up a hamster

furry and fabulousPerhaps you’d like to expand to entire household with this tiny dog house

itty bitty home

Or craft a very learned canary

tweet-reading-is-sweetEven alligators can be cute (and this one is a chomping puppet!):

finished alligator puppetOr make up your own animal entirely!

be you