Going to the art museum has A LOT of rules, and all of those rules make the museum boring. When Anna roars at a lion, she’s told to be quiet. When Anna starts to climb on something that looks like it’s for children, she’s shown the “do not touch” sign. Even when she tries to have a snack, Anna’s told “no eating.”

When a half-open door piques Anna’s interest, she’s surprised when she’s allowed to go in. Inside the “secret workshop” Anna finds a painting of a grumpy girl – a grumpy girl just like her! Anna quickly discovers that art often mirrors and imitates life.

Kids will easily relate to the constant stream of “no’s” that Anna encounters through her time at the museum. Kids will also delight in re-reading the book to study the pictures. Once Anna realizes that art often imitates life, kids also notice that Anna’s life often imitates the art around her. The subtle and clever illustrations blend Anna’s life and famous works of art together, mirroring each other – something that children and adults will appreciate as they read.

This was an amusing and entertaining Canadian production written by Hutchins and Herbert. It's also educational story for young children, with an enterprising young main character who is on a trip to the art museum and is not onboard with this idea at all!

She's bored in the foyer before they even start looking at these classical paintings and sculptures, and she's constantly finding herself getting berated by the security guard for being too noisy, or for touching the exhibits, or for eating in the museum. It's enough to make her scream (and I really enjoyed the page featuring Edvard Munch's Der Schrei der Natur) but then something changes and Anna gets to see a little of the inner workings of the museum.

For me this was a bit of a stretch that this would bring about a magical change, but art is in fact magical so I let that slide without any problem. Now Anna sees art in a new way and relates it to nature and everything is sweet! Finally she appreciates these things she's been seeing, but not really seeing before, on the walls all around her.

Lil Crump's artwork is amazing and skillful and if that doesn't win over a kid then I don't know what will! Her depiction of the actual classical paintings is wonderful. She definitely beats my parodies in The Very Fine-Art Rattuses so if I had a hat, I'd take it off to her! I think this book was wonderful. It teaches a valuable lesson and makes for some fine entertainment. One of the real joys of this book is that Anna is not only depicted as a person of color, but as part of a mixed race family, and this is very rare in children's books, so the story is to be commended on that score too. Now that I've commended it, I can recommend it as a worthy read!

A sweet story about a girl roaming an art museum--her mom is there, but she's clearly unsupervised. She's initially bored, but once she finds a painting that reminds her of her own boredom she starts to feel connected to the art.

Anna at the Art Museum is a vibrant book about a little girl who experiences the museum for the first time. As she explores the floors and the beautiful art, the attendant reminds her of proper museum etiquette. Growing disappointed in the experience, the attendant lets Anna visit the back room where the art is studied. From then on, she views the museum in a different light, vowing to return another day.

This is a darling book. My six year old daughter, an art lover herself, found this book fascinating. Not only were the illustrations sweet and colorful, but the art in the museum was real art. We had a great time reading up about some of our favorite pieces Anna explored at the end of the book. What a brilliant way to get children excited about art, and also learn about proper museum behavior. This is a book I will use as a teacher as well as read again with my children.

The 3 stars are primarily for the illustrations, which are cute and clever. I love how the paintings on each page are somehow connected to the people and things around it. It will certainly help young children to make connections and perhaps spark interest. (On that note, the index of features paintings at the back of the book is very helpful.) However, I just didn't love the storyline itself. Sure, many kids would relate to being bored at an art museum, but I didn't think the book actually did much to cure that. The moment that finally turned Anna around seemed pretty anticlimactic. For most of the book, Anna was barely watched by her half-engaged mother (who honestly didn't seem much more interested in the museum than Anna was), and her spunky behavior was more annoying than cute. Not much happened in the book that would make a child very eager to visit an art museum, nor would it necessarily encourage a parent to bring their young child to one.

This story tells of a young girl who in the beginning of her first art museum experience, is bored and gets into a bit of trouble, however by the end of her visit she sees value in this museum and realizes she would like to return to this place in the future. This is a cute, simple, and relatable picture book that would be great to read to young children prior to their first visit to an art museum.

Anna at the Art Museum
by Hazel Hutchins; Gail Herbert
Annick Press Ltd.

“Anna at the Art Museum” is a wonderful book that empathizes with kids who find it hard to stay out of trouble in adult spaces. The book includes real pictures of art with details about the works at the end of the book.

As Anna goes through the museum, her boredom and curiosity leads to a series of admonitions from her mother and a museum employee. After an interesting development at the end of the story, Anna and book readers learn that, once you learn what to look for, art isn’t boring at all.

This book was decent, and if it had been released in a month other than September, I may have purchased it for my library. But it fades to the background in a month full of big name releases and potential award winners.

What a sweet book! The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. You’ll see many recognized works of art, and for ones you don’t recognize, there is an entire section at the end with details on each artwork featured. We’ve read many art books for children - Mini Masters and Touch the Art - and this is something uniquely new. My daughter loved the illustrations, and I loved seeing the main character discover the joy of art. Highly recommend. Definitely look into buying the actual book - you won’t get the magical experience as well on an e-reader!

A girl is bored while walking through the art museum with her mother. Everything she does seems to get her in trouble. Until the guard helped her see that she is similar to the paintings. This story ended differently than I expected, and that made it even better. I really liked that the illustrator used real art work and not just random illustrations or illustrations of real artwork.

My favorite part of this book was how the people in the illustrations mimic the paintings. The backmatter helpfully names and describes each painting. I wasn't as impressed with the story itself.

Yes to a fun storyline, yes to simple yet beautiful illustrations, yes to a protagonist of color, yes to small children being able to appreciate art! So much about this picture book was fantastic! I also appreciated the full details in the back on the paintings for older children that could actually learn from it.

Anna at the Art Museum by Hazel Hutchins & Gail Herbert is a great book to introduce children to great works of art and museums. The story is about a young girl names Anna who visits the museum with her mother. Anna is not impressed. There are too many rules and everything is boring, that is until she visits the "secret room". A wonderful story to teach children about art imitating life. I had to read this twice to pick up on the secret in the illustrations. My grandson was able to see it almost immediately. I guess I was concentrating on Anna's behaviour, and he was looking at the art. It was the illustrations that bumped this one up to 5 stars for me. The story is beautifully enhanced by illustrations with actual images of real pieces of art scattered throughout this fictional museum. There are many well known pieces of art depicted from galleries around the world. At the back of the book there is a section, "About the Art" where each work of art that is seen in the earlier pages is cited, making this a fun "seek and find" book as well to learn more and extend the book through activity. It takes almost the whole book, but Anna finally finds the magic in the art and appreciates it for the beauty and wonder it is. The publisher, Annick Press Ltd., generously provided me with a copy of this book to read. The ideas and opinions shared are my own.

Anna at the Art Museum is a fantastic and enjoyable book about a little girl who visits an art museum and is bored out of her mind. Everything she does is against the rules frowned upon by the security guard. Her mom is happy to be there but she can't find anything to do. The illustrations for this book are so perfect. It really pushes the story along and you can see Anna's personality through each page. It's not until near the end where Anna connects with the art within the museum. It's a magical moment that is sure to resonate with kids her age. I appreciated that the author includes all of the actual art at the end of the story and gives information about it. It's a whimsical and educational book that is great for any child, whether they're going to have their first museum visit or not!

In Anna at the Art Museum, a young girl visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her mother. It looks like her first real visit to a museum and Anna acts like the child that she is. She approaches art on display and tries to touch it. She runs, skips, is noisy, etc - the sort of child that we don't ever want to encounter in a museum!

The authors slowly show us how Anna learns to behave in a museum. Her mother talks to her and tries to get her to walk carefully, not touch the art, etc. It's done with sympathy and humor and beautiful drawings. Overall, a fun book - I'm hoping it will help parents teach their children how to appreciate and act in a museum.

No shouting
No running
No climbing
No touching
These are the rules Anna's mother gives her multiple times while there visit the museum.
Cute and relatable book about what it feels like to be a bored kid in a stuffy museum.

Prior to visits to the Met and Smithsonian art museums, I downloaded this to inspire my kids for our trip. I had hoped to see some amazing, iconic art in here, but very few of the images wowed me. And that disappointed me because the draw for me (pun intended) was the art.

But, hey, at the very least, I should be able to enjoy the story and illustrations, right? The story was so-so. Nothing new there. Illustrations were clever at times but didn't wow me either.

This could've been so much more powerful and whimsical and make me want more art/get to the museum stat, but it sort of fell flat. I really wanted to love it. I'm sad I didn't.

This beautifully illustrated book captures a little girl's visit to a boring old art museum with way too many rules, But then Anna makes a discovery that completely changes her mind....

Anna at the Art Museum is a really fun read! Anna's mom has taken her on an outing to the art museum, but Anna is not nearly as excited about this trip as her mother might be.

I love that Anna has some real personality that shines through in the illustrations. The real fun starts when you realize that life is imitating art, most specifically the art in the background of each scene.

At the end of the book is a great reference section giving details about each of the famous pieces of art depicted in the book.

5 stars for this sweet little fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Annick Press for providing me with a DRC of this book.

What a fun read! Anna goes on a trip to the art museum with her mom and finds it very difficult to follow all of the rules of the museum. Every move she makes seems to get her in trouble and she's just too distracted from paying attention. Right when she's had enough, one last curious ask let's her behind the scenes and she gains a new appreciation for art. Wonderfully illustrated and included are great works of art, some more famous than others. There's a great appendix of art at the end of the book.

My kids could definitely empathize with Anna and I could with her mom, especially about the no touching part. My kids enjoyed recognizing art and learning about new paintings.