Grocery Store Book: How to Draw Pokemon

Title of Book: How to Draw Pokemon

Author & Illustrator: Tracey West

Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks

ISBN: 978-0439434409

As a mom of three God awesome kids, aged 16, 13, and 7, I have had my fair share of getting bamboozled at grocery store checkouts full of candy an cheap toys. "I just love getting attacked by a screaming toddler that just HAS to have those M&M's, "said no mother ever." To my surprise, it wasn't until maybe a few years ago that I noticed a new marketing tactic, set up by who I believe to be the devil himself, in his mission to destroy mothers everywhere. Now, instead of candy, gum, mints, there are now BOOKS. Now I know what you must be thinking. Books are educational. Books cannot possibly be bad because from a young age, we are all encouraged to embrace reading. With this, I concur. Books ARE SUPPOSED TO BE educational. Unfortunately, stores engage the marketing tactic that People Are Vulnerable by the Time They Get to Checkout and usually just want to pay for their stuff and go.

Today, I browsed my local grocery stores checkout with my sidekick, Noah. I allowed him to choose a book that interested him based on the cover. No opening any of them up to browse. Momma has a line of last minute shoppers behind her waiting to checkout. God bless those procrastinators that wait until Christmas Eve to get their essentials. By procrastinators, I mean me. I totally forgot my dish to bring to Christmas Eve dinner is macaroni and cheese, and sadly, I had none of the ingredients. (Insert hand over face emoji here.)

Noah is a hardcore Pokemon fan. He has a binder with over 500 Pokemon cards, posters all over his room, Pokemon toys galore. Once his eyes locked on the How to Draw Pokemon book, it did not matter what the contents were. The cover alone made the decision for him. Once home, Noah and I sat and went through his pick. The book began with an introduction for Noah, predicting that drawing Pokemon will be fun and in no time he will be drawing his favorite Pokemon like a pro. 

 My initial thought was positive. Each Pokemon to be drawn provides a description of the Pokemon's shape. There are instructions for a step by step guide to draw the figure. I thought ok, this is good. There are 18 Pokemon to draw and the book appears to also be able to be used as a coloring book. Noah read and read over the directions on how to draw his favorite characters. Two minutes in, Noah says, "Mommy, this is hard." As I continued reading over the book, I went through each page and noticed that each drawing is meant to get harder then the previous drawing. The instructions are honestly hard to follow. I have come to the conclusion that this book is more advanced than I initially thought. For someone who does not draw often, Noah struggled. His struggle continued despite attempting to read and follow the directions. The quality of the material of the book is not the best. The book is thin, despite having 32 pages. I don't see it lasting too long if Noah does decide to continue attempting to utilize the directions to draw the characters.

I give this book 1 out of 4 stars. The cover is definitely attractive and calls out to children. Unfortunately, I honestly don't see any child giving 100% effort unless they are master artists. Your average 7 year old, however, will struggle, and if like my Noah, will lose interest after maybe 10-15 minutes.