Book Review: Museum Trip by Barbara Lehman

Book: Museum Trip
Illustrator: Barbara Lehman
Published: 2006

On a class trip to the art museum, one boy gets separated from the group (there's always one). He wanders around until he finds a display of ancient mazes--and then into the mazes, to discover their mysteries for himself.

Wordless picture books are always a little tough for me. Maybe I depend too much on words to tell me what's going on. But reading Museum Trip, I got the same feeling of fuzzy boundaries and space for imagination that I got from David Wiesner's Flotsam. Maybe that's the real joy of wordless books. Just as in comic books and graphic novels, you have to surmise the story through the pictures, and just possibly the story you construct is not the same one that everyone else does.

There's something in this book to captivate art lovers, puzzle aficionados, and adventurous kids. Who doesn't adore the idea of shrinking down small enough to race around a paper maze--and the possibility that you're not the only one who's ever done it?