The Best Gift I Almost Overlooked
The Best Gift I Almost Overlooked
I don't use this blog to advertise my books. That's not what this space is for.
But sometimes life hands you a moment that's hard to ignore — and this was one of them.
I was in a shop recently when I noticed a mum and her daughter, heads together, trying to choose a birthday present for a friend. They were doing what we all do — weighing up options, looking at prices, trying to figure out what a child they love might actually enjoy.
And it made me think about activity books. Really think about them.
What makes an activity book such a good gift?
It's not a screen. In a world where children are already swimming in devices, an activity book asks something different of them. It asks them to pick up a pencil. To slow down. To make something.
It's not a pile of plastic. No batteries, no packaging that outlasts the fun by decades. Just pages and possibility.
It's about doing. There's a particular kind of satisfaction that comes from working through something with your hands and your imagination — what researchers sometimes call deep work. An activity book invites a child into that experience. It's not passive. It asks them to show up.
And it's about learning — quietly, gently, without it feeling like school.
The two activity books I have on Amazon
Since I'm here, and since it feels relevant — I do have two activity books available, and I think they're genuinely good gifts.
What is YOUR Experience? is the companion book to Through Greta's Eyes. It grew out of Greta's world — her curiosity, her love of art, her way of really looking at things. But you don't need to have read the picture book to enjoy it. It stands completely on its own as an invitation to create and reflect.
What are OUR Skills? sits alongside What's MY Skill?, a book about helping children recognise the things they're naturally good at — even the things that don't show up on a report card. This activity book takes that idea further, giving children space to explore and name their own strengths. Again, it works beautifully on its own.
Both are available on Amazon.
Back to that mum and daughter in the shop
I don't know what they chose in the end. But I hope it was something that asked a little of the child who received it. Something that said: here, make something. Here, discover something about yourself.
That's what a good gift does, I think.
And that's what a good activity book does too.
Rosemary Pattison is a Melbourne-based children's author and illustrator. Her books and activity books are available on Amazon.