Everyone tells kids that art matters - but the truth is that very often it's hard to know why it really does. Museum visits can feel like a chore as does having to learn the names of the big artists we're all meant to love (but perhaps don't quite in the way we're supposed to).

This is a huge pity because - grasped the right way - art has a deep capacity to improve our lives and offer us a sense of joy and mental well-being.

Here is a guide to art for children with a difference: in a tone that's kindly, informative, unstuffy and at times rightly irreverent, this book explains how art can fit into our lives. We learn where the impulse to make art comes from, what art to look at in certain moods, how to go around a museum without getting bored and why - without even realising it - we all become experts in art by decorating our first bedrooms.

This is an innovative guide to the importance of art, produced in a way that will enchant children and, along the way, teach their favourite adults one or two vital things as well.