Family-oriented museums can provide a middle ground between play cafes and demanding art outings. The Story Museum in Oxford offers colourful wristbands that allow visitors to come and go without pressure to stay for the whole day. The museum is housed in a former post office and telephone exchange building and contains imaginative galleries based on children’s books from different eras. An hour-long session for under-fives includes a story at the start and end, with free play in between. After leaving early, visitors can explore main galleries, including a story portal that gives children a passport and an indoor forest called the Whispering Wood filled with global fables and fairytales.
"Play cafes are not for me, but that doesn't make me a monster. I don't drag my toddler around museums and galleries demanding that we look at art every day of the week (what fresh hell that would be). Instead there is, I've discovered, a middle ground. Museums that are family oriented and fun and capable of sparking curiosity in arts and culture while they're at it. Museums such as the Story Museum in Oxford. The place is a gem."
"I love it from the moment we're given colourful wristbands that will allow us to come and go throughout the day (no pressure to power through when whining turns to wailing). Tucked away from the tourists in a higgledy-piggledy former post office and telephone exchange building on Pembroke Street, it's full of imaginative galleries that invite you to step inside the pages of great children's books from across the ages."
"First we're booked in for an hour-long session in Small Worlds, a bright and cheery room for under-fives inspired by picture books and nursery rhymes. The session begins and ends with a story, with free play in between, but as soon as my son sees the so-called story bus that's it. My husband is here, too, and we tell ourselves it's OK, that he's too little to sit still and listen to a nice lady read for 15 minutes, even if she is incredibly enthusiastic."
"Conscious of the time, we slip away before the hour is up, and take the spiral staircase up to the main galleries. We pass through the story portal, where my son receives a special passport. Through a carved wooden door we find the Whispering Wood, an indoor forest filled with fables and fairytales from around the world. My son is wary of the talking trees who could blame him?"
Read at www.theguardian.com
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