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Welcome to the Museum: Historium    by Jo Nelson & Richard Wilkinson Amazon.com order for
Welcome to the Museum
by Jo Nelson
Order:  USA  Can
Candlewick, 2015 (2015)
Hardcover
* * *   Reviewed by Bob Walch

Welcome to the Museum: Historium by Jo Nelson, and illustrated by Richard Wilkinson, is an oversized coffee table book that allows the reader to wander the galleries of a virtual museum which offers some pretty amazing artifacts.

Divided into six galleries, you'll discover artifacts from Europe, Africa, The Middle East, America, Oceania and Asia. Within each gallery the collection is further divided into highlighted treasures of different cultures. For example, the American gallery features a few artifacts from the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Hopewell and Pueblo societies.

Turn to the section on the Mayan civilization and the featured pieces include a vessel with a procession of warriors painted on it, an incense burner, a pair of ear flare frontals and a jade mosaic funerary mask. Besides some general information about the Mayans, each piece is accompanied by a descriptive passage.

There are over 140 artifacts included in the book, plus a timeline at the beginning places all these objects in their proper time periods. As you move from stone axes made in Africa a million years ago to pots made in the tenth-century by Pueblo people in America, you'll develop insights about these ancient people and how they lived.

Although this book was created for younger readers in the middle grades and higher, you'll discover this is a book the entire family will enjoy. You don't have to drive miles or make sure the building is open to enjoy this special museum. All you need to do is reach out, carefully open the large book and begin reading. This special collection is just at your fingertips and you can spend as much or as little time as you want absorbing the information found here.

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