Maisy Goes to the Museum - discovering what a museum is!

If you were going to write a blog about museums in literature, I wonder if you would pick Lucy Cousins’ ‘Maisy Goes to the Museum’? Perhaps it’s too simplistic? Well to me it is the perfect starting place, not least because of my love for children’s literature and picture books in particular.

The Maisy series of books are ones that I have enjoyed with my own three children. There are the very simple books for the very little ones – My favourite of these is Maisy Drives the Bus. You can teach numbers and number recognition through that book, looking at the bus stop numbers. They are also very colourful books prompting questions over the colours used in the illustrations so full marks to the writer and illustrator in one.

Maisy Goes to the Museum is ‘A Maisy First Experience Book’ suited to 2 and a half year olds onwards (although it says 3+ on the books all my children enjoyed them earlier). They are intended to give children a little insight into some new experiences like going to the hospital, library, the dentist, etc. all with the familiar mouse Maisy and her friends.

What can you do on a rainy day? Go to the museum of course! That’s what Cousins implies at the start of the book – “they all like the museum very much”. The illustration of the museum is a building with grand columns, a triangular pediment, large windows and stairs up to the door. Think of the National Gallery or the British Museum in its’ Greek Revival Style, with perhaps Georgian windows. I’m sure that Lucy was inspired by the architecture of those buildings.

I love the fact that Cousins starts the museum visit with a WOW moment – a dinosaur! I’m sure many children who have visited the Natural History Museum in London will remember their first sighting of Dippy the famous Diplodocus. This has the label T-Rex, just so Maisy knows what kind of dinosaur it is. And then they look at a fossilised dinosaur egg.

This is no ordinary museum. It has many wonderful and exciting exhibits. Next is the Transport section which contains a vintage car, a penny farthing and a double decker bus – so any lovers of vehicles will be happy. There’s a biplane, a satellite and a rocket. I love the fact the Cousins shows Maisy imagining flying to the moon in the rocket, demonstrating the ability of museums to inspire imaginative play and creativity.

My girls enjoying 'reading' Maisy goes to the Museum

They go the natural history section and here I get a bit confused. Maisy and her friend Charley “marvelled at the brightly coloured birds”. Are they stuffed birds? Or is this an aviary? There’s also insects – these look like they could be living, but then there’s a sabre-toothed tiger and a mammoth too! This all reminds me of when I was an education officer at Chelmsford Museum and we had a collection of what was lovingly called the ‘fluffies’ – the taxidermy birds and mammals set up on display in a realistic setting. I once asked a group of pupils what they enjoyed most about the museum and a young lady piped up that her favourite was the ‘Room of Death’ – I realised she meant the stuffed animals!

A recurring feature of Cousins ‘First Experience’ books is the little list of things you can do at the place, so at the museum you can: draw, play with puppets, make music and dress up. Then of course, there is a café! Let’s hope their cakes and drinks are not as extortionate as a some of our museums. I love the ending though…

“There’s always something new to see at the museum,” Maisy said on the way home. “And there’s always something old to see,” said Eddie.

It seems to me that Lucy Cousins has a good grasp of what museums are and what their purpose is – a place for fun and adventure, creativity and imagination. I did ask if she’d be interested in contributing to this blog by sadly never had a response. When researching the internet for reviews and other opinions linked to this book I came across an American article in Publishers Weekly, an interview with Lucy Cousins, and it is accompanied by a photograph of Lucy at the Eric Carle Museum (of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ fame – another firm favourite). In the photograph Lucy is colouring in a mural of her illustrations of Maisy and her friends. Children are able to add their own drawings to the frieze. This just shows her openness to allow children to explore and discover during a visit to a museum.

When searching the internet, I came across a review on Amazon from a mum of 2 year olds (twins like mine perhaps – but it wasn’t me) and she said:

“My two year olds love Maisy books, and this one is one of their favorites. They request it often, and remember it on our own trips to museums. I believe it has increased their interest in visiting museums--they like to point out satellites, rockets, and anything else they see that Maisy and her friends saw in this book”

Another mum’s review reads:

"We love Maisy books! Really nice bright pictures and simple stories. Maisy visits the museum is great, the friends go to all the different displays together and it talk's about how their favourite parts are all different. We read this before visiting a museum ourselves and it got my daughter more interested."

Another review had a different opinion:

"My problem with this book was it talked about dress up happening at the museum as though all museums have an interactive play area exhibit for kids to explore. Many of the museums in my area do but not all and it could set an expectation for kids that your museum doesn't fulfill. Also, they eat at the museum and I just felt like it made kids expect to buy food and eat at a museum and do interactive fun things that not all museums will have."

Let’s face it, museums sadly are not always as open and as welcoming as we would like them to be, but with the influence of stories like this and the Kids in Museums movement we are seeing some really positive change. I, for one, love seeing babies and small children in museum spaces, learning and discovering for themselves what amazing places they can be. Long may it continue!