Tag Archives: color our collections

Animals in Kodomo no Kuni

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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

Coloring Feathers

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This week libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world are sharing free coloring sheets and books based on their amazing collections. Hosted by The New York Academy of Medicine, the #ColorOurCollections archives is up year round, and the 2021 edition features 95 institutions from around the world, including the Princeton University Library!

The library’s “Coloring Feathers” pages were selected by Jennifer Cabral-Pierce, and are part of “Capturing Feathers,” her fantastic digital exhibit. It celebrates a collaboration between Princeton University Library and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Together, they worked to digitize and study the personal journals of ornithologist Charles H. Rogers (1888-1977).

In honor of the “Coloring Feathers” theme, Katie and I also selected some blog bird posts we love, utilizing materials you can find at home. Note: If you don’t have feathers handy, just fringe some paper!

An easy-to-assemble bird puppet with fantastic flapping wings:

spring chicken

Our ever popular wrist parakeet (and an owl version for all you wizarding fans):

perfect parakeets

A hilarious hide-and-seek duck game in your own home:

fridge duck_4

A reading birdy on a perch (birdcage optional if you have pipe cleaners around!):

tweet-reading-is-sweet

Or, how about a snack worthy of a swan?

the snack of the swan 3

Coloring page is from Physica Sacra, (ca. 1731-1735), vol. 1, page 642, Princeton University Library Collection Treasures of Rare Book Division, EX Oversize 5366.816q, Rare Book Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library.