Smudge

One of the comments quoted on the back cover of this book describes it as abounding in 'visual artyjokes' and this, as well as being a good summing up of it, also explains why my children didn't really take to it, I think. Smudge is a little boy from an impressionist painting who gets bored and breaks his way out of the picuture. In his attempt to find 'a really exciting picture to live in', he tries to join, among others, King Harold in the Bayeux Tapestry, a Greek vase, a nativity scene and a Henry Moore. He finally finds a home among the children in a Lowery. There are similarities with Posy Simmonds' Lulu and the Flying Babies and, like that, I found the book very witty and enjoyable but, because the children were unfamiliar with the paintings and, indeed, with art galleries at all, the jokes fell flat and they didn't really take to the book. More sophisticated, or older, children might well enjoy Smudge however.