If you take your kids to the Amazeum, chances are they’ll want to visit Storyland. And if they visit Storyland, chances are they’ll probably love reading just a little bit more.

The latest traveling exhibit to land at the Bentonville children’s museum is Storyland: A Trip Through Childhood Favorites. The large scale exhibit includes 1,500 square feet of seven beloved children’s books. Each of the English/Spanish exhibits invites families to explore and play while encouraging early reading skills from simple object recognition to rhyming words using letter patterns.

“It’s a great chance to model early reading experiences,” said Kaley Wyckoff, Marketing and Communications Coordinator at the Scott Family Amazeum in Bentonville. “It’s not in just a straight textbook format where you just give a book to a kid and ask them to read it. They can actually step into the pages of a book and play.”

She said that Storyland is definitely aimed at early readers including babies and toddlers who are just getting interested in books and kids who are learning how to read, spell and tell stories.

Wyckoff pointed out the exhibits support a wide range of children’s development milestones.

For babies and toddlers the exhibit based on Eric Hill’s flap book, “Where’s Spot,” has a play wall that lets the kids explore sounds and images through interactive panels and buttons. Wyckoff said it’s one of the exhibits that highlight phonological awareness — the awareness of and ability to work with sounds in spoken language — while also showing parents and caregivers how their children begin to connect letters and sound.

Another exhibit that builds on phonological awareness is based on “Abuela” by Arthur Dorris. In the book, a girl and her abuela move through a colorful and busy city in a narrative that uses both English and Spanish in a very basic and approachable way.

Wyckoff said that the exhibit builds vocabulary skills through listening to city dwellers, writing a shopping list, helping characters from the book make signs, stock shelves and hopscotching from one letter to another. The exhibit also includes a giant figure based on the Statue of Liberty that allows kids to get inside the story’s setting.

“The Snowy Day,” exhibit based on the 1962 Caldecott Award Winning children’s book invites children to explore a snowy city like the main character, Peter, by making a snow angel, matching his footprints and even building a snowman as they also build print and sound awareness with in the snowy world of Eza Keats’s story.

Likewise, for “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” kids can go inside the rabbit’s burrow and collect vegetables, “cook” dinner and tuck Peter into bed. They also get chores for the garden and help Peter find his lost belongings.

An exhibit based on the musical kid’s book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” allows kids and caregivers to further explore sound and rhythm by playing a steel drum along with the story. It builds on letter recognition skills as kids send matching upper and lower case letters up the coconut tree.

“‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,’ works on the narrative skills, helping kids tell stories,” Wyckoff said. The exhibit based on the Laura Numeroff book, which was illustrated by Felicia Bond, gives visitors a “mouse-eye view” of the circular tale. Another part of the oversized exhibit allows children to explore rhyming words on a magnetic board with word blocks and letter prompts.

Kids get to play with story-telling more through a “Tuesday” exhibit based on the 1991 book by illustrator and author David Wiesner, who has been awarded three Caldecott Medals over his career. Using the phone and TV from the book, kids retell the story of the flying frogs and their nighttime visit to a sleepy town.

Wyckoff added that there are hidden frogs throughout the “Tuesday” exhibit which, again, encourages object recognition and helps strengthen early literacy skills.

Storyland is up until Jan. 6, 2025, and is intended for younger visitors. Wyckoff encourages teens and preteens to check out the Amazeum’s Youth Maker Program, which is going on now.

“It’s a really great chance for teenagers who are creative and maybe even have an idea of what they want to create as a product,” she said. “They can work with our team through workshops and one-on-one sessions to fully develop their product and learn about market research, learn about pricing and branding and all the stuff that goes into creating your own product.”

She said that workshops about marketing and promotion are free, courtesy of Cox Communications. For product development, kids can work with the makers at the Amazeum during open make times in the Tinkering Workshop at the museum.

“What’s really cool is at the end of this program, you can sell your product that you made to the public,” she said. “So it’s a really cool opportunity for teenagers to learn more about entrepreneurship and what that means, what that looks like and start setting themselves up for success if they want to go that route.”

The Youth Maker Market returns on Feb. 22, 2025 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2:30 to 5 p.m. In the meantime, teens and their parents can learn more on the Amazeum website at amazeum.org/makers/youth-makers.

Wyckoff also said to be on the lookout for this year’s Zing in the New Year celebration at noon on New Year’s Eve at the Amazeum.

“We always got some fun things going on.”

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FAQ

Storyland: A Trip Through Childhood Favorites

WHAT — The latest traveling exhibit at the Amazeum transforms seven beloved and award-winning picture books: “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter, “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats, “Where’s Spot?” by Eric Hill, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Numeroff, “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, “Abuela” by Arthur Dorros, and Tuesday by David Wiesner into three-dimensional play in English/Spanish learning environments. Created by the Minnesota Children’s Museum.

WHEN — Through Jan. 6

WHERE — The Scott Family Amazeum, 1009 Museum Way, Bentonville

COST — Included in admission, free to members.

INFO — amazeum.org/experiences/traveling-exhibits

BONUS — Kids in grades 6-12 may want to check out the free Youth Maker Program that teaches participants product development from market through workshops and open make times at the Amazeum where kids can develop their idea with the very makers who create exhibits at the Amazeum.

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Monica Hooper is a features writer and podcast host for the NWA and River Valley Democrat-Gazette. She loves sharing stories about artists, dancers, music makers and all sorts of interesting folks. She can be reached at mhooper@nwaonline.com. Read the stories at nwaonline.com/staff/monica-hooper.