Mayhem at the Museum, by Luciano Lozano

Cover: Mayhem at the Museum, by Luciano Lozano

Mayhem at the Museum is a wordless picture book about a class trip—or, at least, that’s my assumption, though it’s not entirely clear if the main character is actually with the group of kids or on her own—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Over the course of the tour, the kids—and then the teacher and even one of the museum guards—begin to interact with the various paintings:

Spread from Mayhem at the Museum featuring Renoir’s Two Young Girls at the Piano

Objects from the paintings end up in the real world, from musical instruments to Van Gogh’s straw hat to Monet’s sunflowers, and overall, it’s a warm and joyful and silly celebration of art.

A thing I don’t understand: WHERE ON EARTH DID THE DRUM COME FROM? If it came from a painting, it happened off screen and I can’t find it anywhere else in the book (including the endpapers!), which made for an extremely frustrating Where’s Waldo session. (Unless the e-ARC I read was missing pages??)

A thing that disappoints me: NO BACKMATTER?? I feel like books like this—specifically books that are set in museums and feature the art of other artists—need backmatter to give readers context, more information, and to encourage them to use the book as a jumping off place to do more exploration into the art & artists & so on. This will likely be the very first time that the target audience is engaging with this artwork, so… like… c’mon. It’s just such a missed opportunity. (Again, unless the e-ARC I read was incomplete.)

So, yeah: All the points for the premise, not so much for the actual execution.