Lost in the Museum

This beautiful hardcover book held a lot of promise but I found it a slightly tricky read. This is the story of a family trip to Te Papa, told loosely from the point of view of a young boy. His Pāpā goes missing and the family along with a museum host search for him by revisiting the various taonga they saw over the day. The book explores the concept of te hononga and the special connections people have to taonga in the museum. The illustrations show the taonga at the museum but also feature flashbacks to the objects being used in the past.

Isobel Joy Te Aho-White’s illustrations are really the star of the book and I feel they manage to tie the otherwise quite confused story together. The colours and weaving, waving lines are really spectacular.

It seems to me that this might have worked better told as a straight forward story without as much about the museum, I understand that Te Papa want to highlight their collection but at times I felt like it detracted from the story. I’m not sure if it would be such a great read for children who are not very familiar with Te Papa and the taonga.

Title: Lost in the Museum

Author: Victoria Cleal

Illustrator: Isobel Joy Te Aho-White

Publisher: TePapa Press

ISBN: 9780995138421

RRP: $29.99

Format: Hardback

Publication: March 2022

Ages: 5-13

Themes: History, Taonga

Any advisory warnings? none

Would this book work as a read aloud? No

Is there a particular part of the country that it’s set in? Wellington

Reviewer: Lucy Black, Librarian, Mt Cook School, Wellington

How are you recommending this book? Recommended

Opening sentence: We’ve had fun at the museum, but now it’s time to go home.

You can buy this book here