How to Take Your Grandmother to the Museum

Description

From Publishers Weekly Wyse (whose books for adults include Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother) teams up with her granddaughter for this energetic museum tour. Young Molly acts as an amiable guide, showing her grandmother around the American Museum of Natural History and spouting snippets of information on dinosaurs, African animals, underwater creatures, bugs and the Ice Age. While the text effectively mimics a child's varied interests, its haphazard quality sometimes results in confusion. For example, when the pair heads to Africa, the text reads, "We took a shortcut through Asia and turned left at Central America. Soon we were surrounded by antelopes and monkeys and cheetahs"; some readers may be confused about which continent they're visiting. However, Molly's concluding notes clear up most of these questions and also expand on some of her sketchier explanations of the museum's artifacts. Gay's art cleverly incorporates photos of museum objects (dinosaur bones, animals in diorama settings) into brightly hued, lighthearted cartoon art. The warm rapport between granddaughter and Grandma make the field trip immediately accessible. Ages 5-8. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 2-An unnamed narrator takes her grandmother through a natural history museum while acting as a knowledgeable guide. At pauses in front of dinosaurs, animal dioramas, the Hall of Ocean Life, a meteorite, and other exhibits, the girl provides facts ("It's called a goliath beetle. It's four inches long, and its wings are bigger than those of a sparrow") while the grandmother is appropriately impressed and unhurried. Cuts from full-color photographs are integrated into the line-and-watercolor-tinted cartoons of squat, primarily preschool-sized children and adults enjoying the museum. Grandma is depicted almost entirely in profile, a cheerful, casual woman in a dress with a strange tail-like billow to her skirt, who is refreshingly ready to listen and enjoy her companion. Humorous exchanges and asides suggest the mutual respect and love between the two. Peripheral endnotes about each stop add little information to the story. A friendly introduction to natural-history museums.Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Booklist Ages 6^-8. Predictably (and with the help of her granddaughter Molly Rose), the author of Funny, You Don't Look Like a Grandmother (1989), Grandchildren Are So Much Fun, I Should Have Had Them First (1992), and You Wouldn't Believe What My Grandchild Did (1994) leans heavily on the intergenerational aspect of this outing to New York City's American Museum of Natural History. Discovering that her otherwise well-traveled grandma has never been there, the young narrator reverses their usual roles, introducing dinosaurs and dioramas and displays of fish, rocks, and insects , and then finishing with a trip to the gift shop. The child shares knowledge gained on previous visits in a brief, dialogue-heavy text ("`I love the purple one,' Grandma said. `That's an amethyst geode,' I told her"). The illustrations, like those in Weitzman's You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum , are made with clipped color photos of actual museum exhibits inset into sprightly ink-and-wash cartoons. The effect is a bit precious, but Wyse closes with additional descriptions of the wonders her characters view. This could be read in preparation for a trip to any large natural-history museum. Children may be as strongly impressed by the evident pleasure that the two visitors take in each other's company as by the setting. That feeling of intimacy earns this a place alongside Aliki's standard-setting My Visit to the Dinosaurs (rev. ed., 1985). John Peters Read more From the Inside Flap Grandmother always takes Molly to her favorite Interesting Places. But when Molly learns that Grandmother's never been to the Museum of Natural History, it's her turn to take charge. Written by bestselling author Lois Wyse and her granddaughter, Molly Rose Goldman, How to Take Your Grandmother to the Museum follows the pair as they visit Apatosaurus, whose bones are even older than Grandma's. They imagine a Pteranodon showing up at the bird feeder, and count T. Rex's steak knife-like teeth. They shiver while looking at an Ice Age exhibit, and imagine they can hear a gorilla thumping its chest in the African Hall. But most of all they discover even more about that very special relationship between grandparent and grandchild, and how the young can often lead grown-ups to the joy of unexpected insight. Read more About the Author Marie-Louise Gay is an award-winning, internationally known author and illustrator of over 25 books for children, including The Fabulous Song, Rainy Day Magic, Moonbeam on a Cat's Ear, Fat Charlie's Circus, and Willy Nilly. Ms. Gay has two sons (but no grandchildren yet) and lives in Montreal, Canada. Read more