Mrs. Brown on Exhibit: And Other Museum Poems [Hardcover]

Susan Katz (Author), R.W. Alley (Illustrator)

Book Description

Mrs. Brown loves museums -- and so does her class! In fact, these cultural connoisseurs are just wild about field trips. Whether it's sneaking up on an ancient Egyptian mummy, walking into a room of fluttering butterflies, or stomping through a giant heart, this class surely makes the grade when it comes to fun. They even take a tour of a skull exhibit and visit a lady who turned to soap! But the excitement doesn't stop there -- author Susan Katz uses a wide variety of poetic forms and unusual exhibits to show just how fascinating museums can be. Her text paired with the hilarious illustrations of acclaimed artist R. W. Alley will have readers grabbing their permission slips and readying themselves for a day of museum madness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mrs. Brown is "the field trip queen," and that means her lucky students get to visit museums galore, exploring collections ranging from the tried-and-true (dinosaurs, mummies, statues) to the extremes of eccentricity (things that people have swallowed). Katz (Snowdrops for Cousin Ruth) adopts the voices of the schoolchildren themselves to celebrate the outings in 20 poems. The speakers expound in both blank and rhyming forms, in alternately playful and contemplative moods. A statue garden inspires one student to muse, "I think myself forever still. Like this rearing horse, whose hooves will never return to earth." The Insectarium brings out a more jovial perspective: "Toe-biter, earwig, and katydid Sheldon's fingers drift toward a lid. Mrs. Brown has to give him two tugs. So he won't reach inside and bug the bugs." Whether lyrically crystallizing an observation or reporting on the antics of the class cut-ups, the poems convey the excitement of kids on an adventure. Alley's (the Paddington Bear books) sprightly, realistic watercolors show the children engaged on a wonderful variety of levels they're mesmerized by alighting butterflies and grossed out by human skulls. As for Mrs. Brown herself, she's a dandy docent, donning a surgeon's scrubs in the medical museum and savoring a lollipop in the free sample room of the candy museum. An endnote lists offbeat museums in every state. Ages 6-10.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-Details of visits to a number of museums throughout the school year with their teacher, "the field trip queen," are recorded in poetic style by some of the eight lucky students in Mrs. Brown's class. Ann describes her own observations and feelings as she and her classmates study art, insects, trains, and clocks; mingle with butterflies; ponder an encased mummy; and appear on dinosaur TV. She also includes a six-stanza poem that reveals the reasons for her annoyance with the class pest. There is a syncopation to many of the poems that, combined with the placement of words and phrases on the page, demonstrates that poetry is cadence as well as rhyme. Busy, cartoonlike watercolor illustrations are reminiscent of scenes from the "Magic School Bus" series, but Alley's artwork is clever in its own way. Like Ms. Frizzle, Mrs. Brown wears clothing appropriate for each occasion (scrubs, froggy boots, an umpire's mask, etc.). Museum brochures fill the endpapers; an appended list of "amazing" (nontraditional) museums is arranged by state; and the back cover shows "Anne & Heather's Museum," based on their field-trip experiences. Read the book aloud to encourage poetry writing, in anticipation of a visit to a museum, or just for fun.
Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689829701
• ISBN-13: 978-0689829703
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 11.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #585,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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