Well, apparently they were back then and still are today for people of all ages. People are making the adult coloring books bestsellers on Amazon! At the time of this writing, eight of the top twenty books on the bestsellers list, are coloring books for adults. There must be something behind this recent growth in interest.
The themes of adult coloring books are usually intricate and centered more around adult images, not your childhood counterparts that included bunnies, super heroes, and farm animals. You would expect to see geometric patterns, psychedelic patterns reminiscent of doodle art type pages, fantasy images including angels, dragons, goddesses and mermaids, and ancient designs of religious and spiritual nature.
The material. Some coloring books offer the ability for the child to simply run over the surface with the pens or crayons provided, and it will turn out to be the right color regardless. Some are more like paint books, and some have magic marker surfaces and come with markers that will not show up on any surface but the specially prepared book pages. Choose the book that best suits you and your child. If you are worried about markings on the walls, then dont select a pack of basic crayons, get something that uses special crayons. If you want your child to exercise their own creativity and not have to fit in the lines or color schemes planned, get basic pages. It is up to you.
