READING ADVENTURELAND

For more information: Susan Trien, 585-410-6359, strien@strongmuseum.org

Reading Adventureland Overview
Strong’s most ambitious exhibit to date—12,000 square feet of pure hands-on fun that invites guests to laugh, play, learn, and READ! The magic of literature comes to life in this artifact-rich, life-size pop-up book. Follow the Yellow Brick Road into five literary landscapes inspired by children’s literature. Figure out whodunit in Mystery Mansion, play with silly words and rhymes in the Upside-Down Nonsense House, explore a shipwreck and caves in Adventure Island, come face to face with famous fairy tale characters and settings in Fairy Tale Forest, and weave the magic of fantasy in the Wizard’s Workshop. Each area is a complete and fully-engaging exhibit in its own right and includes relevant books that can be read on site or checked out at the museum library desk. (Strong houses a mini-branch of the Rochester/Monroe County Library System.)

Educational Framework
When the book closes, the play has only just begun! Children enlist the characters, settings, and plots of literature into new stories as they role play, fantasize, and imagine. They build a foundation for fun, discovery, understanding, mastery, strength, self-confidence, and integrated learning. Historic timelines, artifacts, and background materials provide adults with provocative insights into our nation’s changing cultural values as well as changing attitudes towards childhood and child rearing.

Artifacts
Nearly 1,000 objects from the museum’s collection enrich the experience and include historic and contemporary examples of classic children’s books; vintage and contemporary toys, dolls, and puppets; advertising ephemera; cartoon animation cells; movie posters; and reproduction drafts of working manuscripts from famous works of literature (e.g., E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring). Each of the five areas also contains a “hall of fame” case with reproduction “artifacts” derived from famous works of literature. For example, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers and the hour glass from The Wizard of Oz; two “actual” peas from The Princess and the Pea; Snow White’s half-eaten apple; the Emperor’s new clothes (just the hanger, of course!), Harry Potter’s Nimbus 2000 quiddich broom; and Sherlock Holmes’s microscope.

Inside Reading Adventureland
Step through the pages of a giant book and follow the Yellow Brick Road (inscribed with quotes from The Wizard of Oz) through five magical literary landscapes: Mystery Mansion, the Upside-Down Nonsense House, Adventure Island, Fairy Tale Forest, and the Wizard’s Workshop.

• Mystery Mansion
Enter an old mansion with hidden peepholes, moaning ghosts, creaky floorboards, and a detective agency. Guests become sleuths and solve riddles, decipher secret codes, observe small details, read fingerprints, discover secret hiding places, and search for hidden clues. Inspired by such famous detectives as Sherlock Holmes, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Boxcar Children, Harriet the Spy, Cam Jansen, and Encyclopedia Brown.

Highlights of Mystery Mansion
Secret Control Room: Step behind the secret bookcase and haunt the house with scary sound effects (wind, crash, howl, scream, ghostly moan).
Detective Agency: A hangout for some serious detective work. Dress up like a detective, identify fingerprints, play a detective video game, investigate disguises, and break a secret code.
Face in the Window: Whose face just flashed in the window? Test your powers of recall.
Fictional Footprints: Can you match the footprints to the suspects?
I Spy Game: Test your powers of observation.
The Case of the Confusing Covers: Unscramble mystery images.
Pop-Up Crooks: Change a crook’s identity—head, body, legs—in an activity inspired by an early mechanical book. Create your own mystery pop-up book.
Code Crafts: Write a message in secret code language.
Detective of the Day: Be a detective as you hunt for clues and solve riddles to figure out the mysterious secret code word.

• Upside-Down Nonsense House
This silly upside-down house is modeled after Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, Toots and the Upside-Down House, and other nonsense books like Alice in Wonderland and The Cat and the Hat. Twist logic, play with words, and check your reason at the door. Watch out for baloney, claptrap, drivel, gobbledygook, folly, and goofiness!

Highlights of the Upside-Down Nonsense House
Living Room: Hear your favorite poems backwards and forwards on the Ridiculous Rhymes Record Player. Have fun with words at the Word Play Station.
Kitchen: Cook up Green Eggs and Ham, join the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and play with magnetic letters and words on the fridge door. Each time you open the oven door, a chicken tells a different joke. Create your own silly illustrations at a wacky make-it, take-it table.
Bedroom: Climb into an imagination bed, try out funhouse mirrors, take a peek into the mouse hole and see a tiny world, and twist a “tongue” to say different tongue twisters.
Bathroom: Please keep the seat down, up, down? Lots of literature to read and books to check out.

• Adventure Island
Can you escape from Castaway Island? Set sail for adventure in this giant board game with spinners that lead you through a shipwreck, a cave, a beach, a climbing structure, a tree house and the Castaway Library. Inspired by such books as Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, Robinson Crusoe, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and many others.

Highlights of Adventure Island
The Ship Courageous: Steer the ship to see and hear exciting sea adventures, ring the ship’s bell, peer through a telescope, make and hoist a flag, draw pictures of your crew, and visit below deck for interactive map-reading fun.
Cave of Mysteries: Explore a cave, make cave rubbings, and search for hidden treasures.
The Beach: Play in the “sand,” hunt for buried treasure, and listen for the sounds of the sea.
The Tree House: Clamber up a cliff and cross a planked bridge to the tree house where you must overcome challenges of living on a deserted island—how to keep track of time, stay entertained, look for rescue. Rest on the ship’s hammock, and make a meal served in coconut and wooden bowls. Play a bamboo xylophone, driftwood harp, and simple drums.
Message Center: Send a message from the tree house down to the Castaway Library and out to the ship.
Castaway Library: Check out a variety of adventure books.
Treasure Hunt: Guide a ball through a perilous maze to try to reach the treasure.
Castoff Cove: Use recycled materials to make objects both fun and useful.

• Fairy Tale Forest
A recreation of the settings and story elements from eight classic fairy tales: Hansel and Gretel, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, and Jack and the Beanstalk. Adults will enjoy learning about the origins of popular fairy tales and how they have changed over the centuries.

Highlights of Fairy Tale Forest
Giant and Beanstalk: Meet the Giant—a larger-than-life figure that kids can manually operate and make speak. Then ascend a large beanstalk to the Giant’s Castle where everything is BIG! Play with oversized toys including a gigantic chess set, checkers, dominoes and other oversized props. Play a laser harp by breaking the light beams with your fingers.
Fairy Tale Cottage: Cross the Troll Bridge or hop across the stream over rocks, planks, and crocodiles. Step into Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. Play dress-up and role play before the open “hearth.” Props include Mama, Papa, and Baby Bears’ bowls; Little Red Riding Hood’s basket; Cinderella’s broom; the Three Little Pigs kettle and one of the Seven Dwarfs’ beds. Put on a fairy tale puppet show.
Fairy Tale Museum: See famous objects from fairy tales: Cinderella’s glass slipper, two peas from The Princess and the Pea, Rapunzel’s hair, among others.
The Bad Old Days: Examine historic and contemporary versions of fairytales that have become less violent over time, such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.
Mother Goose Garden: Meet Mother Goose, visit Jack and Jill’s well (see the frog prince in the bucket), fish with Simple Simon, explore the Little Old Woman’s shoe, work in Peter Rabbit’s Garden, and learn the ABCs at a wall of alphabet books from the past several hundred years.
Tent of 10,000 Tales: Change backdrops, dress in costumes, and use props to act out classic fairy tales.

• The Wizard’s Workshop
An enchanting environment that conjures up the atmosphere of a wizard’s chamber and gives kids the opportunity to engage in acts of creativity celebrated in fantasy stories including sitting at King Arthur’s Round Table. Activities are based on such enchanted stories as T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, and C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Highlights of the Wizard’s Workshop
Alchemist’s Laboratory: Mix vials and potions in a magical play kitchen with bubbling cauldrons,unusual ingredients (lizard parts and dragon scales), and recipes from children’s fantasy books.
Magic Mirror: A two-way mirror where guests can meld their images.
Magic Movements: Electronic performance art that lets guests weave patterns in magic “smoke” to different musical soundtracks.
Story Magic: Trace illustrations, create settings, pick a magical creature, add a hero, and make your own fantasy book.
Story Wheel: Spin the wheel to see how most fantasy stories have the same basic elements—a hero, a villain, and a magical setting.
Magic Hall of Fame: Portraits of famous storybook enchanters and wizards.
Crystal Ball: Summon up quotes and wisdom from fantasy novels.
Dragon: Sit between this huge dragon’s paws and read a fantastic book.