As some of you know, we have a godfamily living a long long long way south of us. Getting together isn't easy, but yesterday we met up in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to have lunch together, exchange presents, and explore the Ashmolean.
There is something for everyone in there, from ancient civilisations onwards, and it seems to me that they're concerned to be child friendly. They had laid on three trails for children with accompanying leaflets to help them find things - you could choose from
Gold
Rabbits
Elephants
Small god-daughter was in her princess dress and thought the Gold trail was a good place to start. It was, too, with all the featured items flagged up with a gold star on their cabinets. It led us to the small, intricate and beautifully worked Alfred Jewel, from an Anglo-Saxon court. There was a gold statue of a Russian Empress and medieval paintings so beautiful that the Princess and I gasped at them before we even realised we were supposed to be looking for the figure flying through the starry sky. There was a golden key, and we had to guess what it might be used for. The King's Special Door, said the Princess.
We moved on to the Rabbit Trail after that. She never tired or grew bored. All afternoon she was bright-eyed and delighted. I held her hand as she stopped to gaze open-mouthed at the pretty Georgian tea-services. We talked about making things by hand, and how much effort it must have been, and chose which tea-set/ring/watch we would choose if we could. Time and again she would see something that made her stop and catch her breath, and to me the greatest wonder was that her hand was in mine as she pattered from one beautiful thing to another. At the end she thought that the loveliest thing in the museum was the Alfred Jewel. I knew better.
She was particularly fascinated to see that some of the artefacts were broken, and some had been mended while others hadn't. We talked about that, and the reasons for it. She's a very neat-fingered child - she could thread beads before she was two - and she is now seriously considering a career in the care and conservation of historic artefacts. The other thing she wants to be is a chimney sweep. Not in that dress, my darling.
4 comments:
Ms. McAllister,
My name is Jon Kilpatrick. I teach second grade in a small town called Kennett Square in Pennsylvania, USA. I have been reading your book, Urchin of the Riding Stars, to my class for the past seven years (to over 150 students total), and it is the highlight of the year for many of them. Out on our playground, students from years past are playing "Mistmantle" with my students. Everyone has a favorite character (Lugg is mine), most of them have their own copies of the book, many own all five, and students routinely come back years later to talk about the stories. In my opinion, it is one of the best youth books ever written, and by far my favorite book to read aloud. (I even mention the Heart in my farewell message to the students each year).
In short, I (and my students) are huge fans, and would like to thank you for your wonderful books. I'm going to continue the story by reading Urchin and the Heartstone and The Heir of Mistmantle aloud this year (as I did last year), and will offer to meet students at the library over the summer to read Urchin and the Raven War.
I wish I was in your class!! :)
Me too
Jon, thank you so much! I'm quite astonished, delighted and humbled, and very, very glad that your students have enjoyed Mistmantle so much. Thank you for opening to to them. Lugg is a great favourite of LYS (my younger son), too. I always get a thrill when I hear of children playing out Mistmantle adventures.
There's an e-mail address on the website - give me a call and I'll be in touch.
Post a Comment