Museum Magic! Explorers by Matthew Cordell

Dad, Mom, and two kids--big brother and little sister--head off for a special outing--to the museum! Outside the imposing building, they stop for hot dogs, and the boy spies something else that gets his attention.

Under a sign that says MAGIC, a homeless man sits, selling origami birds, and the boy has to have one. It flies great!

KSSSHHHH!

The boy chases it as it soars up over the big stairway to the tall columns around the door.

Inside the museum, the boy's sister wants to visit the Butterfly Room first, but the boy preempts the choice by sailing his bird-plane toward the towering T. Rex skeleton in the middle of the grand hall. He runs after it through the whole exhibit and finally....

CATCH!

As the rest of the family admires the awesome Arms and Armor exhibit, the boy aims his toy past the Egyptian mummies, and it flies right though ancient Greece and China, where another boy spies it and with a quick reach and grab, he makes a...

CATCH!

The other boy smiles as he tries to return the toy, but with a frown, its owner ungraciously makes a grab for it.

SNATCH!

Dad kneels down for a eyeball-to-eyeball lecture on good manners, and the four sit down for a short timeout, just as little sister spots her chance to...

SNATCH!

KSSSHHHH!

Big brother follows the flight, down the curvy staircase, past the dinosaur, the mummies, the Chinese dragon, and the swords and suits of armor. But it's gone! Dejectedly he sits down on the time-out bench. He's lost, too! His toy is nowhere to be seen., when...

KSSSHHHH!

With a big smile, the other boy flies it to a perfect landing beside him. Boy, toy, and family are reunited, as both families meet and agree to take in the Butterfly Room together. As they say goodbye, the boy passes the flying bird on to his new friend. But...

Where is that Magic Man by the hot dog stand? In the Caldecott-winning Matthew Cordell's new, almost wordless book, Explorers (Feiwel and Friends, 2019), a family exploration of what looks to be Chicago's Field Museum turns out to be more of a learning experience than just mummy and armor lore. Two different boys bond when they share an almost magical toy and an unexpected friendship is begun. Cordell's trademark scratchy pen-and-ink illustrations portray his own family to depict a humorous and heartwarming lesson in kindness learned along with the exhibits. "Full of heart!" says the Wall Street Journal.

X Marks the Spot! Find Spot at the Museum by Eric Hill

SPOT IS VISITING THE MUSEUM WITH MOM AND TOM.

LOOK AT THIS BIG DINOSAUR BONE!

THIS BONE IS NOT FOR YOU, SPOT!

Spot the puppy is not exactly in his element in the museum. He can't chew on the dino bones. He can't look behind the screen at the exhibit under construction. Oh, there's his chewy bone. Now, maybe he'll be good.

What's just through those big doors?

Oooh. A cave man and a big bear! Wow! There's a woolly mammoth. Now that's BIG!

WAIT! WHERE'S SPOT?

It's hard to find a little puppy in the huge museum! There's a saber-toothed tiger, but no Spot! What's inside this cave? Let's look.

Not Spot!

Let's see if Spot is hiding in that mummy case! King Tut? No pup!

How about the Oceans Exhibit? Is Spot inside this giant clam shell? No, he's not.

Where, oh, where has our little Spot gone? In Eric Hill's latest Find Spot at the Museum (Frederick Warne, 2017), readers have to look under a lot of museum stuff to spot that peripatetic pup. Along the way they'll learn about the many interesting things to be found in the natural history museum in this jolly and educational little board book with natural surprises under each flap. X marks the Spot!

Field Trip: My Trip to the Science Museum by Mercer Mayer

IT WAS SCIENCE DAY AND MY CLASS TOOK THE BUS TO THE SCIENCE MUSEUM.

A science museum, with its exciting exhibits and its happy hands-on science activities is like an educational theme park, and Little Critter and his crew are full of curiosity about what they can see and do.

And they are in luck. Their tour will be hosted by none other than Dr. Neil DaBison, the famous television science celebrity. Their teacher Miss Kitty and Dr. DaBison treat them to activities like making a potato battery, touching a glop of plasma. Then Miss Kitty and Dr. DaBison bravely touch the Van de Graaff generator, which makes their hair stand straight up.

THEY LOOKED SO SILLY!

But there's more! There is the planetarium show, where they feel as if they are flying through space and circling the planets themselves and see what must be billions of stars. Then the kids have lunch aboard a model of the Space Shuttle.

Finally it is time to tell Dr. DaBison goodbye and get in line up to climb back on the bus for what now seems like a very slow and short trip through space back to their school. But Little Critter is inspired.

"I WANT TO GROW UP TO BE YOU, DR. DA BISON. YOU HAVE THE BEST TOYS IN THE UNIVERSE!"

Mercer Mayer's latest Little Critter tale, Little Critter: My Trip to the Science Museum (Harper Festival, 2017) is the perfect book to prepare preschoolers and lower primary students for a museum field trip. Mercer Mayer's illustrations of "Dr. DaBison" (a.k.a the real Neil deGrasse Tyson) are quite skilled caricatures, making the famous PBS star scientist easily recognizable to savvy youngsters, and this adventure featuring Mayer's famous character gives kids a realistic look at what they can see and do at a science museum.

The Museum: Ladybug Girl's Day Out with Grandpa by Jacky Davis and David Soman

"I can't wait to see the dinosaurs, birds, elephant, emeralds, bears, lions, planets, and whales," Lulu tells Grandpa.

"Oh, and stingrays, too!"

Lulu is excited. She's never been to a natural history museum before and now they they are there, she's ... beside herself!

"I want to learn everything about everything!"

Grandpa is patient and tries to explain that they can't learn it all in one afternoon, but, her wings all aflutter, Lulu has already spotted an exhibit with mama dinosaur and a baby dino. Then she spies the elephant exhibit.

But, what's that? A grizzly bear family? She runs from case to case, seeing an African Elephant, a Cape Buffalo and then a grizzly bear family. &But what's that down the hall? An enormous Titanosaurus is just visible in the Hall of Dinosaurs down the hall.

"Hold on," said Grandpa. "We can't learn about dinosaurs and Cape buffalo and bears at the same time!"

But Lulu has just discovered the minerals hall.

"I will be Queen, Grandpa, and these are my jewels!" calls the dazzled Lulu.

The well-named Ladybug Girl flits from one thing to another, with Grandpa finally calling a halt to the mad dashes. He reminds her how her basset hound Bingo stops and sniffs something until he figures out exactly what it is.

"Take you time and you'll learn more." he advises.

But Lulu can't help buzzing from one exhibit to another, until they go into a really special part of the museum, the Hall of Butterflies Garden. She flies into the room, running straight for a beautiful yellow butterfly.

But the butterfly flutters away from her, frightened by her sudden movements. Finally Lulu stops. She stands still and observes what is happening all around the room. And as she watches, the butterfly returns and alights on her hand. Suddenly she sees, really sees, everything about that butterfly.

There will be surely be many more visits to the museum for Lulu, as Jacky Davis suggests in her latest, Ladybug Girl's Day Out with Grandpa (Dial Books, 2017).  Artist David Soman sets his enthusiastic little heroine in ebullient detail against a less-well defined background, with even Grandpa shown in broken lines and subdued shades, with the vibrant Ladybug Girl the center of her own attention, but perhaps beginning to learn to stop and bring the things around herself into sharp focus. Preschoolers have lots of curiosity, but little patience for detail until they discover how exciting those details can be, and who is better than Grandpa to teach patience. Davis and Soman are up to the task in this story that salutes the wisdom of grandads. Says Kirkus Reviews, "A gentle reminder to stop and smell the roses."

Strange Sights! My Weird School Goes to the Museum by Dan Gutman

"

"My name is Andrea and I love school.

I love tests. I love homework. I love teachers, and teachers love me.

Who wouldn't want to be teacher's pet?"

A. J. wouldn't. His ambition is to be class clown, and in that he's already been notably successful.

Andrea doesn't understand how A.J. qualified as "Talented and Gifted," but there he is, paired with her for a special tour of the art museum.

Ugh. It's bad enough to have to put up with A.J.'s silly shenanigans, but to make it worse, the rest of the class say they must be in LOVE! (Andrea thinks they are, but A.J. just doesn't know it--yet!)

At the museum, their personal guide Mr. Meezer has been informed that one of them may not be the well behaved. When A.J. persists in calling their guide "Mr. Geezer," Andrea is sure he'll know which one of them is the one prone to mischief.

But it doesn't work out that way. In the sculpture section, A.J. reacts to a nude statue.

"I can see his butt!" A. J. whispers.

"We're looking at fine art and all you can see is a BUTT?" Andrea protests.

"YOUNG LADY!" says Mr. Meezer. "You are being very immature!"

Andrea tries to explain.

"But...but... but..." she stammers.

"I TOLD you not to say that!" says Mr. Meezer.

Mr. Meezer's got it all wrong. Clearly he thinks Andrea is the misbehaving one of the pair, and as the tour goes on, it only gets worse, and finally it is Andrea who gets sent back early to Ella Mentary School in disgrace. She is humiliated. Will she lose her status as teacher's pet?

But luckily, A. J. is more worried about losing his status as class clown and cheerfully takes the rap for her, in Dan Gutman's latest in series, My Weird School Goes to the Museum (I Can Read Level 2) (HarperCollins, 2016). There's some witty wordplay and a bit of boy-girl humor in this independent reader, with Jim Paillot's jolly digital illustrations of funny field trip doings to elaborate Gutman's narrative. This more advanced easy reader is good for individualized independent reading practice and also serves as an introduction to Gutman's beginning chapter books in his My Weird School Daze 12-Book Box Set: Books 1-12. Dan Gutman is also the notable author of two very popular middle reader series, his time-traveling Baseball Card Adventures and his science fiction series, the Genius Files, page-turning novels that will take readers right into young adult status.