Newsletter – May 23, 2025
PHOTO CREDIT: icom.museum
This past Sunday, I heard on the radio that it was International Museum Day. Well, why did you wait and tell me on the day of? C’mon people, give me some room to run with this little gem!
Having set my novel in The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, and building on that theme in the much-anticipated sequel The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago (I, for one, am dying to know how it turns out), I should be informed about this International Day for Museums. Heck, I even blogged a recommendation for Mike Gayle’s book The Museum of Ordinary People (Margerumalia, January 17, 2025). All museums honored here!
Clearly it’s up to me to seek out the information and share what I learned. You’re welcome.
Oh, dear. I went to the icom.museum website and I’m afraid it’s rather stodgy and very academic sounding. Their photographers, on the other hand, really know what they’re doing. There are lots of really interesting photos that make you say, “That’s interesting. I wonder what’s going on here?” Especially in the Sharing Is Caring section.
That’s what we want to know, isn’t it? What are these people doing here and why? …And then what happened? …And then what? Stories are our common bond.
Somewhere in the Black Forest of Germany, my mother sensed that my brothers and I were bored by the tapestries, the thrones, and suits of armor gathering dust in the umpteenth castle of the day. So she took us outside.
A small square pond about the size of a Little League infield sat low in a clearing surrounded by tall shaggy oaks. Mossy bricks edged the still water and no breeze blew through this fine and private place.
“Hello?” my mother shouted, only to be answered by her own voice.
“Hello?” it said back.
We looked at her blankly.
“That was the Echo,” she told us. “Let’s see if we can find her.”
And even though we knew it was a game, we dashed up and down the little hillsides, looking behind tree trunks and vine-covered stones to see if we could find the mysterious Echo. I think we even shouted a few times to hear her shout back in our own voices.
After about twenty minutes of this game, my brothers and I were nearly spent and remarkably capable of touring another bedroom in the nearby castle.
Echo went with us. I know because I heard her mocking the tour guide with his own voice even though he didn’t shout.
Fifty-plus years later, I still remember that exciting moment when Mom made the echo into a sprite called Echo.
And this morning, two little boys walking with their mother and calling me “a grandpa” rushed ahead when I told them that the yellow post at the top of the hill was good luck if they touched it. We all earned our good luck this morning.
That’s the kind of museum I want to remember. And a lot of the curators have figured that out. Especially the children’s museums who say, “Go ahead. You can touch it,” because they know we learn through all of our senses, not just our eyes.
TTFN
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 