Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonders of Museums - Hardcover

Lee Bennett Hopkins

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081091204X ISBN 13: 9780810912045

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2007

Synopsis

Praise for Lee Bennett Hopkins

University of Southern Mississippi Medallion for “outstanding contributions to the field of children’s literature”

Parents Choice Gold Award winner

Christopher Award winner

“Hopkins . . . captures the wonder and exuberance of childhood.”—School Library Journal

Fourteen poems on the many dazzling collections featured in museums

The art, artifacts, and anthropological treasures found in museum collections are coupled with stunning poetry by acclaimed writers Lee Bennett Hopkins, Jane Yolen, Myra Cohn Livingston, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, and many more in this unique volume. Perfect for art, natural history, and children’s museums, this is also an ideal book for classroom teachers before they bring their students on a museum visit. The lively verse captures the wonder and amazement of the exhibition experience, from mummies to medieval relics, and from fine art to fossils.

Selected by children’s poetry luminary Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by award-winning artist Stacey Dressen-McQueen, Behind the Museum Door will allow young readers to bring the experience home with them to enjoy again and again, long after the museum doors are closed.

About this title

About the Authors

Lee Bennett Hopkins has written and edited numerous award-winning books of poetry for children. A renowned poet who sponsors an annual poetry award, Lee lives in Cape Coral, Florida.

Stacey Dressen-McQueen was recognized in Publishers Weekly’s annual Cuffie feature as a “promising new illustrator.” She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

Grade 3–5—This collection of poems touches on the sights and sensations a group of children experience on a field trip. Inside the museum, they encounter a suit of armor, a mummy, a dinosaur skeleton, an ancient wheel, paintings (Picasso, Cassat, Renoir), a modern mobile, a fossil, and an old tapestry. Selections are by such poets as Lilian Moore, Jane Yolen, Alice Schertle, and Myra Cohn Livingston—one per spread—shown amid the subjects they portray. Each of Dressen-McQueen's folk-art-style "exhibits," carefully crafted in acrylic paint, oil pastel, and colored pencil, successfully captures and reinforces the mood of its accompanying poem. For a poetic museum field trip from a child's point of view, try Susan Katz's Mrs. Brown on Exhibit (S & S, 2002). Both books can add excitement and fun to an impending museum visit or help inspire a class to summarize a recent trip.—Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The awe and curiosity that museums inspire is the subject of this bright, energetic poetry collection. The selections, contributed by many familiar poets writing for children, marvel at how easily artifacts transport viewers into history. Many of the poems read like private thoughts: "Pictures on the wall / look into lives / back when / I was not / anyone at all," writes Felice Holman in "Museum." In other poems, kids directly address ancient objects and make connections with their funny, casual words: "Hey there, Brontosaurus . . . How were the good old days?" asks the speaker in Lilian Moore's selection. Several poems add shivery drama by imagining ghosts come to claim their objects: "Watch for her tonight--tiptoe-- / across the cold tile--open-- / the glass shoe case / --reclaim her shoes," writes Kristine O'Connell George. Working in acrylic, oil-pastel, and colored pencil, Dressen-McQueen creates brilliantly colored, crowded spreads that greatly reinforce, rather than overwhelm, the meaning and mood in the well-selected poems. A perfect read-aloud before a class field trip. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081091204X
• ISBN 13: 9780810912045
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32