A Night on the Tiles

In this follow up to the Mother Goose award winning When Martha's Away, Ingman lets us into the details of the secret nocturnal life of Lionel the cat. And a very full and colourful life it is. The ginger tom spends most of his owner's sleeping hours working on fashion design, scooter maintenance and tree house architecture at a feline night school; he dines in a canteen run by a French chef; he takes his girlfriend to a cafe or a movie or to watch poodles, dachshunds and dalmatians competing at the dog racing. The he wends his way home by scooter. This big, bright picture book depcits Lionel's surrealistic adventures in a suitably phantasmagoric manner. Broad washes of crepuscular colour are illuminated by Lionel's orange fur and the custardy yellow of night lights. Shadowy characters are half sketched into the margins. The paintwork is fashionably embellished with startling patches of photomontage. The storyline is very slight, but the overall effect is entertainingly mysterious. Cat lovers should savour this one.