Review by 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.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by 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)
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Review by 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
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Review by 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.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book 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.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
