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Have you ever wondered what happens to all the exhibits in a museum once the public have gone home, the doors are locked and the lights turned off?

In the Museum of Childhood, where David Lucas’ latest book, Lost in the Toy Museum is set, wondrous things happen after dark; all the toys come to life.

But the question is, do they have much fun?

Night after night Bunting the old toy cat calls the register, counts the toys, makes them do their exercises and checks for signs of wear and tear before lecturing his fellow exhibits on the museum’s history.

Marble Floor at the Museum of Childhood. Photo: V&A Museum of Childhood

But toys are made for playing, for having fun!

And so one night Bunting’s audience breaks rank. The toys run away, enticing poor old perplexed Bunting into a game of Hot or Cold, which despite its perils, ends up being rather a pleasure. And although it seems likely that Bunting will never manage to relinquish all his sense of responsibility and need for order, night times in the museum are going to be a whole lot more adventurous and enjoyable from now on!

Continuing a grand tradition of stories about toys coming to life (here’s an Amazon listmania list of such stories, to say nothing of Toy Story) and inevitably calling to mind The Night at the Museum by Milan Trenc and the subsequent film, you might ask what does Lost in the Toy Museum add to the mix?

First and foremost for me is the tremedous beauty of David Lucas’ illustrations, full of pattern and colour. Then there’s the story which is perfectly pitched for the youngest listeners to enjoy with its simple text and pared down plot (although I’ve also read it to classes of 6 and 7 year olds and they’ve loved it too, going off at break time to play their own games of Hot and Cold). I love the fact that the toys, even though they are museum exhibits, want to play and have fun – exactly what toys should be all about (unlike the nasty dolls in the exhibition in Rumer Godden’s The Dolls’ House who simply want to be admired), and I’m utterly entranced by the fact that all the characters which appear in Lost in the Toy Museum are based on real exhibits in the Museum of Childhood; I can’t wait to take my girls to the museum with this book and play o

Today I’m thrilled to be bringing you a guest post by award-winning British writer and educator Matthew Finch.

Matthew is currently based in New York and blogs on literacy, education and storytelling at booksadventures.blogspot.com. When he saw my Reading Round Europe adventures through the Nordic countries he offered to visit the storybook installation at Scandinavia House in NYC on my behalf. I was delighted! I had already highlighted the installation, A Child’s Adventure in the Swedish Countryside in my post about Kidlit destinations in Sweden and had dreamed of visiting it. Short of offering to fly me over Matt did the next best thing and visited the installation and interviewed those involved with it at Scandinavia House for Playing by the book. I’m very grateful to Matt, so let me now, without further ado, hand you over to his words!

New York’s Park Avenue isn’t the first place you might look for trolls, fairies and talking fennel bulbs, but right now, it’s the place to be for Manhattanites seeking a touch of Nordic magic, thanks to the American-Scandinavian Foundation.

Photo: © Jonathan B. Ragle

Families who visit the children’s centre on the fourth floor of Scandinavia House find themselves transported across the waters from the USA to a magical Swedish country landscape. British artist and set designer Sarah Edkins’ installation, A Child’s Adventure in the Swedish Countryside, leads young explorers through a warren of plush, cushioned skyscrapers via a seascape mural into a fabulous rural fantasia.

Photo: Tina Buckman, courtesy of Scandinavia House.

Sarah joined Matt and Playing by the Book via e-mail to discuss the project. We began by discussing her history with the American Scandinavian Foundation.

‘I’ve been working with Scandinavia House since 2003, when I created the first Swedish Children’s exhibit, celebrating Pippi Longstocking and the work of Astrid Lindgren. It was meant to run for six weeks but it was so popular that the members asked to extend it, and it ended up staying for more than four months! The exhibit was followed with more from each of the Scandinavian countries, and each one stayed up longer. The Iceland installation was up for two years.’

Photo: Tina Buckman, courtesy of Scandinavia House.

Sarah’s original plan for A Child’s Adventure focused on the work of Elsa Beskow, the pion

Our first Norwegian picture book for our Reading Round Europe adventure is Anna’s Art Adventure by Bjørn Sortland, illustrated by Lars Elling.

Anna has been taken by her uncle to his place of work, an art museum. From her body language you sense that she is a reluctant visitor to the galleries and despite her uncle’s reassurance that the visit “will be fun” Anna isn’t convinced.

Things get off to a bad start.

Anna watched the grown-ups who were listening to her uncle.

“Visual art…,” Uncle Harold said in a serious voice, “is a vast subject. I shall attempt to explain, so please keep your questions for later.”

And then they only get worse. Anna needs a pee. In fact she really needs to go to the bathroom. So she slips away from her uncle and his audience and asks a wrinkled old man if he knows where the bathroom is.

This wrinkled old man, however, is none other than Rembrandt: Anna is talking to his self portrait. But without batting an eyelid, Rembrandt answers and sends Anna off on an exploration through landscapes and characters in a variety of paintings in the gallery as she tries to find the toilet painted by Marcel Duchamp. “Had Duchamp exhibited a real toilet or a piece of art? Anna had to find out because she really had to go.”

Anna follows a winding road through an Edvard Munch painting, across a van Gogh landscape, bumps into Picasso on a beach, dreams her way through a Magritte picture and is very intrigued to find Jackson Pollock creating what appears to be a huge mess as he completes a characteristically explosive painting.

As if waking from a reverie Anna finds herself back in the gallery listening to her uncle’s tired voice. Anna thinks to herself, actually

“He doesn’t’ know who really painted that picture or what can happen if you venture into a painting”.

But Anna knew – she had tried it for herself.

If you didn’t know who the author and illustrator were of this book you would have no reason to suppose that this is a picture book from Norway. It’s simply a lovely, detailed, engaging book about art, which happens to have been created by two talented Norwegians. I love how it captures the idea that if you can just let yourself go, allow yourself to let go of any preconceptions, you can escape into a picture and it will take you on an adventure.

The story draws on two common childhood experiences – being bored listening to an adult talking about something rather dull and desperately needing a pee. I’m sure M could identify with Anna’s situation and this empathy immediately drew M into the book.

On each page the illustrations are in the style of the painting through which Anna is walking. Elling, an established fine artist, as well as a book illustrator, vividly captures the essential elements of the different artists; they’re all instantly recognizable to an

Continuing where I left off yesterday with my description and review of London’s Imperial War Museum’s new exhibition, Once Upon a Wartime, the fourth section of the exhibition is dedicated to Ian Serraillier’s The Silver Sword, the story, based on true events, of a small band of Polish children who travel from Warsaw to Switzerland in search of their family, having been separated from them earlier in the Second World War.

Click to view larger image

Above is a section of the cabinet including some of Serraillier’s original notes and then for comparison, an excerpt from the final manuscript for The Silver Sword.

This is the silver sword – actually an envelope opener sent to Serraillier by his brother, but which provided such inspiration for the novel.

Illustrated route taken by children in The Silver Sword

A beautiful space in the exhibition is an illustrated map of the route taken by the children on their way to Poland. I felt this helped give a sense of scale to their journey and made me think about what astonishing things people can achieve, and about what conditions bring out hidden strengths and perseverance in us.

The map included several video screens with questions posed to us the visitors, asking about the choices we might have made at various junctures along the way. Whilst the idea for this was great, it didn’t quite come off, in my opinion. The questions posed were too simple and the answers lacked contextualization. Perhaps the questions and answers were written to engage younger children, but they could have included a little more information so that adults could also enjoy this section.

The fifth and final book presented in the exhibition is Little Soldier by Bernard Ashley. This book was new to me and tells the story of a boy soldier from east Africa who is “rescued” (my quotes, not Ashley’s) and taken to the UK. He finds it hard to settle and continues to find conflict everywhere in his life, now with gangs on the streets of London.

Storyboard for Little Soldier

Whilst I thought it was an excellent choice to include this book, a book not about either of the world wars, a book set in contemporary rather than historical Britain, a book about what real fighting and face to face conflict can mean to a chil

Once Upon a Wartime, an exhibition which opened earlier this month at London’s Imperial War Museum, takes five children’s novels about war and conflict and uses them as a starting point to explore what war can mean for children.

Imperial War Museum entrance

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall and Little Soldier by Bernard Ashley provide the inspiration and setting to explore themes of loyalty, separation, excitement, survival and identity. Whilst these are books typically read by children older than my normal focus here on Playing by the book, I was nevertheless extremely keen to visit this new exhibition, to discover what inspired the authors to write their books and find out about the historical context of each story through objects, photographs and films.

I was also very interested to see how the museum chose to bring these books to life – exhibitions about children’s literature are not that common – and I thought you too would be interested to see how these books have been translated into a family exhibition.

In my review which follows I’ve included plenty of photos (to give those of you unable to visit the exhibition the best possible flavour if it) and

In just under two weeks time a new exhibition is opening at The Imperial War Museum in London inspired by 5 classic children’s books: War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden, The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier, The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall and Little Soldier by Bernard Ashley.

The Imperial War Museum, London. Copyright: Imperial War Museum

Once Upon a Wartime: Classic War Stories for Children, a family friendly exhibition, brings to life these stories through scale models, interactive exhibits and life size sets. Visitors will be taken on a journey through conflicts from the First World War to the present day and along the way experience something of war through a child’s eyes.

Kids (young and young at heart) will be able to pull up a chair in Hepzibah’s kitchen as the evacuees would have done in Carrie’s War, discover the schoolboys’ secret fortress from The Machine Gunners and wander around the cellar school, hidden under the destroyed streets of Warsaw in The Silver Sword.

Each featured book will be contextualised, with genuine examples of relevant objects including evacuee labels and letters, aircraft recognition cards and a tail fin from a German incendiary bomb. You’ll also be able to see artefacts from the authors’ working processes, including manuscripts, early sketches, interviews and photographs.

To mark this exhibition in style the The Imperial War Museum has commissioned a new sho

Suitcase packed and passport at the ready? Then we’re off, on the first stage of our European tour – and this week’s destination as part of Reading Round Europe is Finland!

Finland’s most famous children’s author has to be Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins. Interestingly, Jansson wrote in Swedish rather than Finnish – about 5-6% of the population of Finland have Swedish as their mother tongue. Her first Moomin book was published just over 65 years ago, but today Moomins are probably more popular than they’ve ever been.

Given this background, it’s not surprising that the two biggest kidlit destinations in Finland are both Moomin related.

The Moominvalley of the Tampere Art Museum is a museum devoted to original works by writer and artist Tove Jansson and can be found in the centre of the city of Tampere.

Photo: Tampere Art Museum

The atmospheric Moominvalley art museum hosts a constant exhibition for a part of the collection of c. 2,000 works donated to the City of Tampere and the Tampere Art Museum in 1986 by Tove Jansson (1914-2001), Tuulikki Pietilä (1917-2009, graphic artist and Tove Jansson’s partner) and Pentti Eistola (a frequent collaborator with Jansson and Pietilä on Moomin projects).

Photo: Tampere Art Gallery

In addition to the permanent exhibition, there is currently a special exhibition, Dancing Moominvalley, focussing on movement and dance in the Moomin art of Tove Jansson, who apparently loved to dance herself. Alongside the exhibition dance company Tanssiteatteri MD is currently performing a contemporary dance piece also titled Dancing Moominvalley – you can see images on the Dancing Moominvalley blog.

If you can’t make it to Finland, you could instead visit Bury Art Gallery, Manchester (UK) which is currently hosting a temporary exhibition of Tove Jansson’s illustrations on loan from Tampere Art Gallery.

MakemineMid-Century said, on 1/2/2011 5:02:00 PM

Fabulous post! I love it!

Iris said, on 1/2/2011 10:30:00 PM

I didn’t know there was a Moominworld! Now I want to visit Finland even more

Zoe said, on 1/2/2011 10:40:00 PM

Oh Iris, me too! Doing the research for this post and the ones coming up about Finnish kidlit just made me more and more interested in visiting the country…

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