Guest post by Carys Bray, author of The Museum of You

Welcome to Carys Bray, author of The Museum of You.  As part of her blog tour, Carys has kindly written a guest post about one of her favourite museums.

 

 

In my new novel The Museum of You, twelve year old Clover Quinn sorts through her mother’s belongings and curates an exhibition in the second bedroom of the house she shares with her Dad, Darren.

As part of The Museum of You blog tour, I’m writing about some of my favourite museums. In recent months it has been frustrating to read of the museum closures which appear to be disproportionately affecting the north of England. Museums are a great place to learn about our heritage; they’re often a testament to the efforts and dedication of working people, the men and women who built and made many of the things we take for granted today.

World Museum

When my children were small this was our favourite museum. It’s possible to spend a long afternoon there, even with several tiny, easy bored people in tow. It’s such a popular museum that the Liverpool Echo produced this handy guide for families who would like to visit.

I have a picture of my children, wide-eyed and rosy-cheeked, standing beside these dinosaur skeletons, but they wouldn’t let me use it.

The World Museum is full of exciting and creepy objects: a child mummy, a meteorite from Mars and Samurai armour. You can learn about space and see a display of clocks and watches from the 1500s onwards. There are over a million insects and other invertebrates at the museum. I love the drawers full of butterflies, moths and beautiful beetles; bees, wasps and ants. Each drawer opens like a beautiful surprise.

In the bug house there’s a giant model spider on the ceiling which wobbles every so often, as if it is about to climb down. One of my sons insists that frequent visits to the museum were the catalyst for my daughter’s terrible fear of spiders.

Sometimes the things we see in museums scare or discomfit us. Clover Quinn finds something unexpected in the bottom of the wardrobe in the second bedroom. An object with a sad story. That’s the thing with the past, once it is uncovered it may also need to be confronted.