How Smudge Came (Northern Lights Books for Children) [Hardcover]

Nan Gregory (Author), Ron Lightburn (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Northern Lights Books for Children

In the home where Cindy lives, no dogs are allowed, so she must bundle puppy up when she goes to work as a cleaning woman in the Hospice. One patient is so blind with illness that he can barely see the dog; it looks like a smudge. But, oh, how nice to hold the puppy. What is Cindy to do? How will she care for Smudge?

Reviews
"A moving story with a happy ending."
_ Quill & Quire

"A beautiful story, lovingly told and illustrated."
_ Resource Link

Nan Gregory is a professional storyteller and has performed in schools, libraries, hospitals, parks and theatres, at conferences and festivals, and from the back of a horse-drawn sleigh. Her career has taken her across Canada and to the United States, Japan and New Zealand.

Ron Lightburn is an internationally renowned illustrator of books for children. His illustrations in the picture book Waiting for the Whales earned him the Governor General's Literary Award for Children's Illustration, the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award for Illustration and the Elizabeth Mrazik Cleaver Picture Book Award.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 2^-4, younger for reading aloud. Cindy finds a stray puppy in a snowstorm, sneaks it up to her room, and snuggles up to it in bed: "If there's one thing Cindy knows, this is her best friend." You respond to the universal pet story before the illustrations show that Cindy is a young woman with Down syndrome. The initial empathy is never lost. Cindy lives in a group home; it's a comfortable place, but there's no privacy and no place for her puppy. In the daytime she travels to her cleaning job in a nearby hospice. She enjoys her work, and the patients like her. One very sick young man, who is nearly blind, helps her name the puppy "Smudge." Her hospice friends feel her grief when she has to give up her pet to the animal shelter.

Most mental disability stories are told from the viewpoint of a sibling or a friend. This book, first published in Canada, is remarkable in telling it as Cindy sees it. We hear her voice, clipped, direct, concentrated on one thing: she must keep Smudge. Lightburn's realistic pictures in soft-tone colored pencil have the same beautiful sense of fragility, steadfastness, and connection. We see Cindy half smiling about her secret as she tells herself to concentrate on her chores ("Don't break a plate, Cindy. Think about the plates, not the puppy" ). The rooms and corridors at the hospice, the quiet portraits of the people there, are seen through her eyes. There's no preachy message about respect; the story demands it. In a wonderful ending, both surprising and convincing, she gets her puppy back: Smudge will live where Cindy works, at the hospice. Cindy gets her dearest wish through her own grit and her absolute single-minded determination, and with the help of her friends. Hazel Rochman

About the Author

Nan Gregory's previous children's picture books include the international best-seller How Smudge Came and the critically acclaimed Wild Girl and Gran. Nan Gregory is a professional storyteller and has performed in schools, libraries, hospitals, parks and theatres, at conferences and festivals, and from the back of a horse-drawn sleigh. Her career has taken her across Canada and to the United States, Japan and New Zealand.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Fitzhenry and Whiteside; 1 edition (September 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889951438
• ISBN-13: 978-0889951433
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,785,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From A Parent's Perspective, December 23, 2000

By 

tracy alvarado (san antonio, tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Smudge Came (Paperback)

Coming from a mother of two boys with Down syndrome, I was justtouched at the story. Gregory has a captivating way of literallyentering the mind of Cindy and the way she processes her day to dayactivities. This wonderful lesson in empathy helps us realize thatso-called "special-needs" people are a lot more like therest of us than they are different.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It has amazing heart and soul and mystery and reality., April 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: How Smudge Came (Paperback)

I am in awe of what Nan Gregory has been able to accomplish by page 2, the respect she has for her young audience's intelligence, and for all the seeds of other stories she plants along the way but chooses not to tell. Ron Lightburn's gorgeous, moody, illustrations help draw the reader (or listener) into Cindy's world, far away from sentimentality and cuteness. A great book; one day hope to read it (and Charlotte's Web) aloud without sobbing. Please give us more of Cindy.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How Smudge Came, February 24, 2006

By 

A. Teacher (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Smudge Came (Paperback)

When I first read this book I cried. It is a great tale about a girl with down's syndrome named Cindy. She finds a puppy that she befriends and is forced later in the book to give up the puppy. It is a heart warming tale that children can identify with. We've all lost something we loved, whether it be a family member, a pet, or even a favorite blanket. In educational terms, it is filled with sight words and many new vocabulary words. It also introduces young readers to diversity and is a great way to teach children about disabilities.