Hopkins, Lee Bennett (comp.). Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonder of Museums. ill. Stacy Dressen-McQueen. Abrams Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8109-1204-5
This anthology gives readers a peek behind museum doors. With excellent illustrations and a comfortable layout, Lee Bennett Hopkins demonstrates how exciting museums can actually be. Poetry in this book is from both contemporary and traditional poets, including notable ones such as Jane Yolen, Myra Cohn Livingston, J. Patrick Lewis, and Hopkins himself. After reading this book, kids can enjoy the museum long after their field trip has ended.
The poems in this book are varied in style, format, rhythm and rhyme. The reader is drawn in at the beginning with sneak peek and led out as the museum closes. It is a consistently quality book that evokes imagery and meaning from its words and rich illustrations and certainly support the purpose of the book. A note on the illustrations: many different cultures are represented throughout the book which I feel is so important when presenting works to children.
It is hard to pick only one poem to share! For a more creative project, I would read "Stirring Art" to the students and show them a picture of the artwork featured in the book. I would then have them create art that could be "stirred." This could be a mobile, papier mache birds, or even free-form construction paper cut-outs. (Depending on the grade and class...) Then I would showcase as many of the different works as possible.
"Stirring Art" by Heidi Bee Roemer
Beauty
suspended in
suspense.
A breath of air
awakens
lifeless form-
See
it
dance.
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