The Museum of Everything

First Title Value for Searching:

Personal Author:

Perkins, Lynne Rae

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 24 cm.

Summary:

When the world feels too big, loud, and busy, a young girl imagines a museum where she can organize little pieces of it and wonder about them.

Subject Term:

Museums -- Juvenile fiction.

Imagination -- Juvenile fiction

Audience/Lexile:

Ages 4-8.

Grades K-1.

Publication Info:

New York : Greenwillow Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.

Subject:

Museums -- Juvenile fiction.

Imagination -- Juvenile fiction

SAILS ISBN:

9780062986306

Available:

Library	Shelf Number	Shelf Location	Status
Searching... Plainville Public Library	J PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Acushnet Library	JJ PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Attleboro Public Library	PIC PERKINS,L	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Bridgewater Public Library	JE PERKINS, L.	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent	JE PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fall River Main	E PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library	JJ PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Hanson Public Library	PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... James White Memorial, E. Freetown	JJ FIC PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mansfield Public Library	JJ FIC PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Mattapoisett Free Public Library	JP PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Middleborough Public Library	PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... New Bedford Free Public Library	J PIC PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Norton Public Library	JE PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Plympton Public Library	E PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Raynham Library	JPIC PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Richards Memorial Library	PERKINS -- (PICT)	1:JPICTUREBK	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Seekonk Public Library	JJ PERKINS	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Somerset Public Library	P E R	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Swansea Public Library	C PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Taunton Public Library	E PERKINS	CHILDRENS ROOM	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wareham Free Library	JP PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westport Free Public Library	JE PER	PICTURE BOOKS	Searching... Unknown

Newbery Medalist Lynne Rae Perkins invites readers on an imagination-fueled journey through the living museum that surrounds us all. Luminous, in-the-moment, and full of wonder, The Museum of Everything inspires readers to slow down and appreciate the world. For fans of What Do You Do with an Idea, The Most Magnificent Thing, and classics such as Time of Wonder and A Hole Is to Dig. Illustrated with extraordinary dioramas and collages.

When you feel that the world is too big and loud and busy and distracting, you can pretend that you're in a museum. It's quiet there, and you can wonder about everything: Is a rock in a puddle an island Is a dry spot on the ground on a rainy day the shadow of a car that's just driven off There's a museum for everything--for islands and shadows and clouds and trees, and so much more.

Newbery Medalist and acclaimed picture book creator Lynne Rae Perkins balances imagination and creativity with curiosity and facts. She has created the extraordinary artwork in three dimensions--as if each page is an exhibit or installation in a museum. A transcendent and timely picture book, The Museum of Everything encourages young readers to wonder, dream, and explore--and to learn more about the world around them.

Reviews (5)

School Library Journal Review

PreS-Gr 3--Perkins, who broke readers' hearts with Home Lovely, and with every book since, elevates the ordinary--again--in this story about objects we simply do not really see: a fallen leaf, a cloud, a flower. In the mental meanderings of the narrator, who is white, nongendered, and lyrically minded, "I wonder about things like, can a rock in a puddle be an island? And think about if the rock in the puddle is on a boulder in a pond. And what if that pond is on a small island in a lake? And what if that lake is on a bigger island, out in the ocean? It would be an island in a pond on an island in a pond on an island in a pond on an island in a pond." This child, in T-shirt and jeans, gives readers a sense that the microscopic and the telescoped can live side by side, or within one another. It's the kind of philosophical questioning that in less capable hands would be pretentious, but Perkins brings a sense of scale to the drawings--part watercolors, part digital, some photographed overlays like ghosts from an I Spy book--and creates a seamless whole. There will be, in the Museum of Everything, a Museum of Islands, as well as a Museum of Hiding Places, shown as a bush, with figures in it lightly penciled in white. The wanderings have force and direction, as the book winds down to what-ifs--What if we are in a Museum of Hiding Places right now?--given weight in dollhouse vignettes that shimmer from tactile to ephemeral. VERDICT Perkins connects with readers who daydream, validating that act as a way to see the world and learn of its many interlocking pieces, and makes imaginative mental musings into a story, and an artform. Pure fun.--Kimberly Olson Fakih, School Library Journal

Publisher's Weekly Review

"When the world gets too big and too loud and too busy," the narrating child says, "I like to look at little bits of it, one at a time." Considering objects one by one and putting them "in a quiet place" is also what museums do, a resemblance that the child notices: "Maybe it would be called The Museum of Things I Wonder About. Because I have a lot of those." In three-dimensional illustrations that resemble the low-tech, at-home diorama-style museum a child might make--photographed rooms constructed of cut paper with props assembled from all kinds of materials--Perkins (Wintercake) molds islands big and small, a roomful of skirts that look like bushes in blossom ("Everyone can try them on, and twirl"), a collection of shadows, and more. Ideas are developed with particular richness: after cataloging common shadows, the child considers other kinds, as when a sun-warm leaf leaves a leaf-size space in the snow: "a shadow of melting." After this excursion through their own thoughts, the white child feels ready to return to the noisy world. Distinctive and heartfelt, the museum is observed with a poet's eye and an inventor's spirit. Ages 4--8. (May)

Horn Book Review

In this big, noisy world, a museum, even if it's only in one's imagination, is a place of quiet contemplation. With this absorbing and original picture book, Perkins offers a special sanctuary for curious and creative dreamers, a space to think about, explore, and possibly curate a few collections of their own. No exhibit or artifact is too small or ephemeral to be included. The unnamed child narrator considers establishing a Museum of Hiding Places; a museum made up exclusively of shadows; and, of course, a Sky Museum, which is open all the time, with exhibits that change daily. The child envisions a Museum of Bushes, complete with an interactive exhibit -- a roomful of "bushskirts" for visitors to try on and twirl in. Other intriguing installations include a model of "an island in a pond on an island in a pond on an island in a pond on an island in a pond" and a Museum of Little Things (a.k.a. a windowsill), with found treasures to look at one at a time, or all together. The book features Perkins's vibrantly colored (and beautifully displayed) 3-D art, shadow boxes, dioramas, and miniature displays, complete with curtained backdrops and prosceniums. Many of the pages include photographic elements and realistic detail, with dashes of whimsy and creative flair to match the child's inventive musings. A perfect lead-in to a museum visit or a STEAM-based contemplation titled the "Museum of Things I Wonder About." Luann Toth July/August 2021 p.94(c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

What would you put in your own museum exhibits? Perkins' great gifts for observation and connections are on display here as her narrator--a young White person--serves as curator and tour guide for several "museum exhibits" of concrete objects and abstract phenomena. "When the world gets too big…I like to look at little pieces of it, one at a time," the narrator says. The result is a small, idiosyncratic catalog of possibilities and a lens for seeing parts of the world in relation to one another. Anything might belong in an exhibit: skirts made from flowering shrubs, all the hiding places in a room, shadows, the sky. One exhibit is a meditation on islands, perspective, and scale: An island could be a stone in a pool on a rock in a pond on an island in the ocean. Perkins uses a palette of rich bright colors in these dioramas and collages. Found items become foliage for bushes, shadow-box items, sandy shorelines. A realistic-looking book dissolves into clouds. Because the text is conversational, quietly speculative, and low-key, there is plenty of room for readers to think about and celebrate their own ways of seeing, collecting, and cataloging the world--and to celebrate an endless variety of possible museum exhibits around them. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9.3-by-22.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 23.6% of actual size.) Poetic, intriguing, and charming. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

There are many fascinating museums in the world, but expand your definition of what you might hope to see in a single building and enter the Museum of Everything. An ungendered white child imagines what could be included in a museum of favorite things or of things that fill them with wonder. Gloriously inventive illustrations reflect the child's rich inner thoughts. One imagined room houses an array of bushes, made of flowers, leaves, and twigs. Wouldn't they make wonderful skirts? In this inclusive museum, everyone is welcome to try on the skirts and twirl. Later, a Sky Museum is depicted as a giant book, with clouds and colors that shift as the pages turn. Materials are chosen to best convey the visual message, so watercolor is combined with sand, stones, wood, moss, wool, foam-core board, fabric, embroidery thread, modeling clay. Some pages are photographed 3-D models, producing the look of a dollhouse or bitmoji room; other spreads are painted more traditionally. The result is a marvel of creativity, engaging children in thinking about whether they would have a Museum of Small Things or a Museum of Hiding Places or perhaps museums of shadows or islands? Whatever causes you to pause, appreciate, contemplate, and enjoy--that's what belongs in your own Museum of Everything.