Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Meet Me at the Art Museum by David Goldin

 Meet Me at the Art Museum: A Whimsical Look Behind the Scenes by David Goldin

Rating: 4.5 stars

Here's a quirky book by, judging by his blog and website, an equally quirky author.  I mean quirky--both book and author--in a really good way.

How to make educational fun?  Such a hard task.  But Goldin does it. Here's a book that describes what goes on behind the scenes at an art museum (or any museum, for that matter).  Goldin manages to throw in words like curator and docent and archivist and still my kids were asking me to read it again to them.  I'm grateful for this book as it helps my kids have a better understanding of what one is, and a better appreciation for how much effort it takes to run one.

The story:

Stub is a leftover ticket that gets left, flat like a pancake, on the museum floor after it closes.  A friendly name tag named Daisy finds him and gives him a tour around the place.  She shows him the different galleries but also the offices of the museum that are helpful for visitors and/or employees--coat check, director's office, gift shop, library, to name a few.  Ben's favorite page was the one explaining what symbol signage is--"easy to understand, even if you can't read" signs.  He was proud to be able to "read" the signs even though he can't yet read.

This room is called a gallery.  There are many galleries in a museum.
During the tour, Stub wishes and hopes he might live in a museum. And, in the end, he gets his wish!  He peeks his stub-head into the room where damaged treasures are restored and whooosh gets blown by a fan into a painting that is sticky from a fresh coat of varnish.  He's happily displayed in the museum as art the next day, and for every day thereafter.

This book is one of four that I am giving my sister's 6 year old twin girls for their birthday.  (Confession: their birthday was at the end of January, the party last weekend, and their gift STILL is not ready.  One of these years I'll be on time with my gifts...)  Two books on art--this one and A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen--a great book I reviewed for Family Magazine and two books on how to draw.  And then a date with our family to a museum in D.C.  Priceless, right?

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