Written to introduce art to young readers, young Anna does not start off engaged during a visit to a museum, but her attitude changes when she sees a painting of a bored, grumpy young woman, "just like me". Anna's transformation from bored to engaged seems rather abrupt. I appreciate that the chosen art is "kid friendly" for young picture book readers. Also of note, Anna is a child of color. So, although not a standout work, I recommend this as an introduction to art and art museums for 4-6 year olds. Review based on a digital ARC from NetGalley.

It's great to have books that inspire kids to go to the museum, and prepare them to what it is, so that it is less scary for them. I was even more pleasant when I thought it was with people of colors! Finally! But then, I felt a little bit taken aback by the very-low quality of the illustrations and by the overall message of the book. Anna is bored, very very bored at the museum. She starts doing everything her mom told her not to do: climbing, touching, screaming... Her mom spends lots of time on her phone and is often far away from her, which doesn't help much... In the end, a kind museum guard allows her to explore a mysterious workshop, and there she has the biggest revelation! There's a painted grumpy girl, and she looks just like her! She then realized the magic of art, and how the inside world reflects the outside world. The ending is full of magic feelings, which makes it ends nicely and smoothly.

I still feel doubtful about the overall message of the book. I feel like for the kids reading this book, they will be able to relate to what they are not supposed to do, but then, they might not have access to the same kind of magical revelation, or see themselves in the art pieces, which will make it harder for them to live Anna's magical revelation. I wish this book could have spent more time exploring some dialogues between the mom and the daughter, to look at the art together, to explain the links between the "inside and the outside worlds"... This kind of book is needed, but I feel like this could have been done in a better way.

Anna at the Art Museum is a picturebook written by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert, and illustrated by Lil Crump. Going to the art museum with her mom is no fun at all for Anna. Everything is old and boring and there are so many rules: Don’t Touch! Do Not Enter! Quiet! A vigilant guard keeps a close eye on the energetic little girl, but even so, Anna manages to set off an alarm and almost tip over a vase. A half-open door draws Anna’s attention, but the No Entry sign means yet again that it’s off-limits. This time, however, the guard surprises her by inviting her to go in. Here she finds a “secret workshop” where paintings are being cleaned and repaired. Staring out from one of the canvases is a girl who looks grumpy and bored—just like Anna herself. With the realization that art often imitates life, Anna discovers the sheer joy to be had from the paintings on the wall, especially those that reflect what is happening all around her.

Anna at the Art Museum is a picturebook that recognizes that things that can be fun do not always feel like it when our energy level and mood want more than the rules around us require. Following the rules in the art museum is hard for Anna, and honestly most children (and some adults). However, Anna is lucky enough to get a glimpse of things she might not otherwise see that allows her to enjoy the more sedate activities. I think this is important for children and parents alike, to see that if we can relate to the art or activity we are much more likely to enjoy the journey. That connection is what made following the rules and enjoying the museum possible for Anna, and much less stressful for her mother. I thought the illustrations captured the beauty and uniqueness of the art, and the mood and motion of Anna very well. The theme that life imitates art is easily noticed once you look at the illustrations, and see those commonalities. I also like that they show other children having a hard time in the museum, so Anna is not shown as bad or unusual in her struggles. I really enjoyed the additional information that is given at the end of the book about the real art that is featured in the story. I like that it is a fairly diverse selection of art.

Anna at the Art Museum is a wonderful picturebook about art and how we can see the reflection of reality in it. This would be a great book to look at before introducing creating or appreciating art in school or at home, or to preface a trip of your own to an art museum.

Anna is like every typical smart and precocious child. She is inquisitive and when she goes to an art museum finds herself a little bored and getting into trouble because of her curiosity.
I loved the artwork in the story and as an adult appreciated the artists and their work highlighted. Not sure how well this book will be received by children reading the story. The three stars are a reflection of the appropriateness of the material to the age group.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher, Annick Press Ltd., for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Anna is an imaginative, curious girl who visits the art museum with her mom. She accidentally sets off an alarm and gets in trouble for eating a snack. Bored, she explores only to discover the place where the artwork is restored. She finds a painting she totally connects with –a grumpy girl like her– and that changes how she sees all of the artwork. Beautiful illustrations of real, diverse art.

The story succeeds at capturing that moment when Anna sees herself in the art, and therefore is able to relate to it, for the first time. It is a subtle moment of profound discovery, surprising to Anna and poignant to us who get to share in that discovery with her.

Anna is bored at the art museum while her mom looks at all the nice displays - right up until she spots someone doing something interesting through a door that was slightly ajar. She gets to take a look at what's going on behind the scenes in the museum, and that gives her a whole new appreciation for what's going on. Very cute story about learning to appreciate things that might initially seem dull. :)

I felt the story was maybe a little weak, but I did love that real works of art found in real museums was included in this book. My 3 year old daughter didn't really love the book either. But each piece of artwork found in the story are listed in the back with artist, museum, date, etc. listed and she did like looking at the art that way and deciding which picture she like on each page.

The two strongest elements of appeal in Anna at the Art Museum are character and illustration.

Anna's initial boredom at the museum will be relatable to a number of young readers. She does not understand the fascination of fine art an attempts to entertain herself in other ways--other ways which are not appropriate in a museum. When the long-suffering guard reveals the hidden art restoration workshop to Anna, she discovers herself in a painting. Suddenly, her world changes.

Lil Crump steals the show with her illustrations. The theme of art reflecting life is aptly demonstrated on every page. Children will enjoy comparing the images of the people at the museum with the real life artwork (there is an index in the back of the book).

This is one of my new favorite picture books.

This book was so well written! I enjoyed the illustrations and I LOVED the manners it also taught. I think it's great to expose children to art at a young age and allow them to grown to love it as young adults/adults.

This is a beautiful, brilliant and creatively educational children's book. I love that almost everyone can likely appreciate Anna's boredom in the art museum. I personally wouldn't be bored in an art museum but take me to a car show and I'm bored beyond belief (and feel just like Anna!).
While the things Anna does and gets in trouble for are very relatable; what is truly brilliant about Hazel Hutchins story is that you can teach (or learn for yourself) some art at the same time! All the pieces shown throughout Anna's Art Museum are famous and notable to some degree. Not every notable artist is in here (it lacks Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, to name a few) but there are enough that even an art history student might learn to recognize a painting or two!

I love how all the art themes on each page are relevant to how Anna is feeling or what she (or others) is doing in the museum. This is a clever way to show kids that art is reflective of real life. The key to this book, especially if you're reading it to an older child (8+), is to teach the child the names of the art and the artist as you go through the book. Don't worry you don't need to know them all yourself there is a handy index of each piece of art at the back of the book.
So brush up on your art history and dive into Anna at the Art Museum. You and the child(ren) you read to might learn something from this adorable book.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

This is a book about a little girl named Anna and her trip with Mommy to the museum. There are lots of paintings of things Anna likes but there are also a lot of rules while being in the museum. Anna is told repeated by the museum attendant that she can not do things she normally would do like eat or drink (unless at water fountain), touch the paintings, or make loud noises. Anna relizes all the colors that are in the paintings. I really like how the book in the end told about the paintings in the book and where they are located. This is a great way to introduce art to a child and a fun and easy read. I recommend it for ages 3+.
I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion

I love that this book incorporates real paintings. The little girl is adorably mischievous, which my children enjoyed. I’m not sure about the story though. For most of the book it shows children that museums are boring. It did touch on important rules about behavior in a museum but I worry that this book would really encourage young children to misbehave at one. I liked the glimpse of the work done behind the scenes to restore the paintings but it was far too short. I love that it names the paintings at the end but I’m not sure if the labels are actually with the paintings. My galley version has them apart which would be a shame. Overall it could ah e been so much better. My daughter just thought it was so-so.

It’s a boring museum, what’s a girl to do?

Anna and her stuffed giraffe are on an outing with her mom to the art museum. Anna is a typical rambunctious youngster who finds the art museum’s rules just a bit stifling and the artwork old and boring. Or is it? While Anna set out to entertain herself, readers can entertain themselves with the witty juxtaposition of the subjects in the artwork seeming to react to what’s going on in the museum and the museum patrons mimicking the characters and activities in each scene’s artwork. It’s altogether too much fun to pick out all the similarities from clothing style, colors, and the body language and expressions.

While Anna is bored and wandering, causing near disasters, a kind guard gives her permission to enter what seems to be a secret area. It’s where the paintings are meticulously restored and cared for. Anna finds that perhaps the subjects of the paintings may have been as grouchy and bored as she was until the museum began to turn itself inside out.

Drawn with quirkily attractive illustrations, Anna at the Art Museum will have children and adults alike paying way more attention to the artwork than they would normally. Each piece of art is a photographic reproduction carefully woven into the illustrations. A fantastic touch is the Section, About the Art, where each picture artwork is shown again with its title, period, artist, and art medium. I think this book would be a great lead-in to a field trip to a similar museum.

Highly recommended for the sheer joy of the sly humor, illustrations, art work, art lessons, and portrayal of a typical young girl finding joy in a museum. Way too much fun!

<i> “If only the museum could be turned inside out. Or the world outside in.”

“When a door is half open, it is very hard not to wonder what is on the other side.”</i>

Anna, who is very small, has been brought to an art museum for the very first time, and is she ever cross! With her stuffed toy beside her, she sits grumpily on a sofa below a portrait of a beautiful woman, who looks benignly and thoughtfully down on her. While her mother is purchasing tickets to see all these “old and boring” things, Anna resolves that she’ll just have to entertain herself. And she proceeds to do just that. She plays peekaboo with a baby whose mother is taking in the oriental exhibit, and to the embarrassment of her mother and the horror of the museum attendant, she almost knocks over a fragile antique vase in the process. In another room, Anna attempts to climb the platform on which a contemporary geometric sculpture with a red sphere at its centre is perched; it looks a little like a jungle gym . . . maybe. Later, an alarm goes off when she reaches to touch an oil by Michelangelo. With hands over his ears, the security guard rushes past Edvard Munch’s famous painting, “The Scream”, to stop her. There’s an adventure—or a near disaster—in almost every room.

What Anna doesn’t observe, but which observant readers figure out soon enough, is that in every room of the museum, famous pieces of art are matched by something in real life. In the peekaboo game, which occurs in the room where an eighteenth-century Japanese ink-on-silk painting of a mother and child hangs, the real child Anna engages with is of Japanese ancestry, as is his mother. The red sphere at the centre of the modern sculpture is a larger version of the red ball another child visitor rolls on the floor of the museum. That child’s father and grandmother stand behind him, posed almost exactly like the figures in a nearby Breuze painting. Schoolgirls touring the museum are wearing outfits that resemble those in another piece of art, and the legs of tall museum-goers resemble the trunks of trees in a work by Seurat. Art reflects life—or maybe life reflects art?

Anna catches on eventually. The museum attendant takes pity on her when he sees her look longingly at a half-opened door that seems to lead to “a secret workshop”. He allows her to go into the room on the other side, where cleaning and restoration work are done. As chance would have it, a conservator is just removing grime from a painting of a very grumpy girl. The scales correspondingly fall from Anna’s eyes—so to speak. “She’s just like me,” she exclaims. “Or I’m just like her.”

Authors Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert, along with artist Lil Crump, have created a delightful and clever picture book. Real works of art are included in the illustrations—paintings, prints, scrolls, and sculptures. At the end of the book, the reader can find thumbnails and short descriptions of all the famous paintings (but not the other art objects). This is a book that needs to be pored over to be appreciated. It’s easy enough for parents to share such a book at home with their kids, but in a school or library setting, the use of a document camera is advised.

Thanks to Net Galley and Annick Press for providing me with a digital copy of the book for review purposes.

Anna at the Museum starts off strongly: “Anna was not happy.” The image of her sulking on the couch at the entrance to the art gallery only emphasizes just how unhappy she is with her mother’s idea of a nice day out. Throughout the next several pages, things only seem to go from bad to worse as she gets in trouble for being too nosy, being too active, trying to eat in a gallery room, stepping in the wrong place, getting too close to a painting and setting off an alarm. When she sees a half-open door, she assumes like everything else it will be off-limits, but to her surprise the attendant tells her it’s a slow day, and she can go in. Inside she finds a group of people restoring/cleaning works of art and as she watches one such person working on a painting, “the face of a young girl slowly emerged. It was a bored face, a grumpy face. Anna knew that young girl.” Finally able to make a connection with the art all around her, her day is suddenly transformed and, on the way, out, Anna whispers, “I’ll be back.”

The story is cute enough, and certainly captures the feelings of a child who feels “trapped” in the adult world of culture and quiet respect. The author/illustrator sprinkle multiple actual paintings throughout, including many well-known ones such as Munch’s The Scream, Monet’s Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies, and Cassatt’s Little Girl in a Blue Armchair. There’s also a nice diversity to the work, as we for instance see several Japanese prints or several African-American subjects. Even better is the playful way the text makes use of the paintings, with the actions of the characters often mimicking or paralleling the actions of the paintings’ subjects. For example, in the panel with The Scream, two people are standing with the same hands-to-the-face pose in response to Anna setting off the alarm by getting too close to a painting. And as her mother looks at a Monet painting of a regatta, Anna is looking out the gallery window at sailboats out on the lake.

Overall, the text is easy and smooth, while the artwork is warm, colorful, and engaging. An excellent picture book in all aspects.

In Anna at the Art Museum, Anna can't help but attract the attention of the attendant. The art begs to be touched! The rooms insist she run, and when Anna gets hungry she doesn't understand why she isn't allowed to have her snack. When she finds a door marked NO ENTRY, Anna tries very hard not to walk through the door and to find out what happens you will have to read the book.

I loved this book for the many conversations it will encourage between parents and children. There are a lot of unique words the child will be introduced to and even better it will encourage a family outing to experience art.

I really liked this story because Anna wasn't bored at the art museum, actually she was quite fascinated by everything, but she kept getting in trouble for getting too close to the artwork. I really liked the character of the guard who gave her an alternative way to appreciate the pieces. Would make a great read-a-loud.

An interesting usage of artwork and text together but I found the art to be more compelling than the narrative. I think the author should work on creating a more dynamic text.

5 ‘Kid Friendly Art History’ Stars!

This book was such a fun, cute read! I read it by myself and then shared it with my 6 year old daughter. We both loved it!

Anna is a rambunctious little girl that is trying to find some fun in an art museum. She gets into a few situations with the museum attendant as she cavorts through with her mom.

I thought this was a great way to introduce kids to art history and some of the greatest pieces of artwork of all time. My daughter loved the pictures and the story. She’s so excited for her first visit to the art museum now.