For Family Fun, Museums Make Books Come to Life

The most famous third-grader in the world was coming, and excited kids were lined up all the way down the block to see him. Others were snooping around his classroom, inspecting the tent in his yard or nosing around his kitchen.

But no one was bothered by this noisy intrusion. In fact, the kids were encouraged to explore Arthur’s World at the Children’s Museum of Boston--at 3,800 square feet, the museum’s biggest exhibit. A giant Arthur, author-illustrator Marc Brown’s bespectacled 8-year-old aardvark, stands on the museum’s roof. Arthur’s World was so hot that it boosted attendance by 40%, museum officials said.

Around the country, other book characters are proving as big a draw. Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and other creatures will tour nationally from the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, arriving late next year at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in San Francisco. Alice in Wonderland is taking center stage at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, while Richard Scarry’s Busytown is such a long-running hit at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry that two versions are being used by other museums.

“With the right author, like Dr. Seuss, we draw people in who have never been to a museum before,” noted Andrew Ackerman, director of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, where the Seuss exhibit started, and president of the International Assn. of Youth Museums.

“You get grandparents and parents and older siblings,” said Chicago Children’s Museum Director Dianne Sautter, where Seuss! ended its run in August. “It was a home run for us.”

At the same time, there’s the popular Seussland at Universal’s new Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, complete with the chance to snack on green eggs and ham. Metreon, Sony’s enormous new San Francisco entertainment complex, boasts an interactive adventure with Maurice Sendak’s “Wild Things” and the In the Night Kitchen diner, where kids can gobble their burgers amid oversized illustrations from the classic story.

For a traveling family, discovering such an attraction or exhibit is like unexpectedly meeting an old friend in a strange city. “The kids know everything about Arthur,” explained Lisa Shannon, who was visiting Boston from Michigan with her two children. “Seeing Arthur’s neighborhood here was a nice surprise for them.”

It’s been 20-plus years since Arthur was created, spawning the hit book series--about 18 million in print--and a TV show on PBS.

“I think the museum is one of the best uses of Arthur,” author Marc Brown said from his home. “The world is such an adult place that we sometimes forget how important it is to see things from a child’s perspective.”

These exhibits are designed so that children can walk right into the pages of their favorite books. Just like Alice, they travel through a rabbit hole in Philadelphia, entering Wonderland.

In Oregon, even toddlers go to work in the Busytown factory, turning wheels and cranks. They build in the construction area, crawl through mini-houses and load cargo in the shipyard.

Such literature-based exhibits empower young children, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan’s Ackerman said: “They feel in control, and then you can push them to the next level.”

For information, call:

Children’s Museum of Boston; telephone (617) 426-8855, Internet https:// www.bostonkids.org.

Children’s Museum of Manhattan; tel. (212) 721-1234, Internet https:// www.cmom.org.

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; tel. (503) 797-4000, Internet https://www.omsi.edu.

Please Touch Museum; tel. (215) 963-0667, Internet https://www.pleasetouchmuseum.org.

Universal Studios Escape; tel. (800) U-ESCAPE or (800) 837-2273, Internet https://www.uescape.com.

Metreon; tel. (415) 369-6000, Internet https://www.metreon.org.

Taking the Kids appears the first and third week of every month.