About the Holiday
As you grow and have difference experiences, it’s fun and instructive to look back and reflect on your life: are you doing the things that make you happy? Are you performing your job and other responsibilities the way you want to be? What impact you are making? This month’s holiday encourages people to think about their legacy and make changes if desired.
Homer Henry Hudson’s Curio Museum
By Zack Rock
Everything has a story, the narrator tells readers, especially the Homer Henry Hudson Curio Museum, which, he says, has been described as “a colossal collection of curios, discovered, described, and displayed by that eccentric explorer extraordinaire: Homer Henry Hudson.”
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
Come in and experience the wonders inside. A dignified bulldog dressed in a dapper tweed suit and leaning on a crooked cane will greet you. His job is to keep the place clean and dusted. Although the museum is stuffed floor to ceiling, he knows the placement of every object, knick-knack, and curiosity. As you explore the museum’s holdings—its portraits, musical instruments, ancient artifacts, taxidermy animals, and other treasures, the caretaker sits silently, hoping you will read the display cards that Homer Henry Hudson has lovingly written out with a description and personal note. He even has his favorite “bits and bobs” that he would like you to see.
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
One of these is Item #0001, the Conausaurus Skull of a small dinosaur from the late Jurassic Period that HHH found in the soil of his family’s farm. This bony discovery made Homer Henry wonder what else the world held and sparked his love of exploration. Another is Item #0023, a Radial Tide Diviner once used by Calypsonian seers to predict the future based on tidal patterns. It was the discovery of the lost Calypsonian civilization with its valuable artifacts that funded Homer’s further explorations.
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
Item #3412, a Temple Montepaz Choir Finch with a C sharp trill that chanted to accompany the parrot priest, was a most unusual gift. It was bestowed on HHH for convincing the Parrot Priest to release a piece of wood stripped from the temple wall. This shard turned out to lead Homer Henry Hudson into his future—for better or worse. With renewed fire, HHH charged toward the promise of riches only to fly his plane into a mammoth stone figurehead, which resulted in injury and his life-long limp.
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
Item #3415, The Manneken Mort of King Ingmar, is perhaps Homer Henry’s most treasured possession. Composed of fabric bands that represent the stories friends and family tell when someone dies, this Manneken Mort contains hundreds of bands relating the life of King Ingmar. This object HHH acquired for bravery and self-sacrifice when he was younger and still full of enthusiasm for life.
The old bulldog thinks of this curio most. He wonders what his Manneken will look like and whether all the bands of his life have been woven. He likes to think his Manneken Mort “would be hundreds—thousands—of feet tall. It’d tower over the Taj Mahal, shame the Sphinx!” But he knows “few memorable tales are told of rusty old codgers who spent their days…leaning upon fear like a crutch.”
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
Though blind in one eye and nagged by trepidation, the old bulldog packs his suitcase, dons his hat and throws away his cane. As he walks out the door, past pictures of himself on his early expeditions of discover, he knows he might “meet with catastrophe,” be “swallowed by quicksand,” or “gnawed on by piranhas.” But he also knows “there’s no success without failures,” and he has had many successes.
Homer Henry Hudson boards the cruise liner Phoenix and sets out for adventure once more. After all, he well knows that everything has a story. So if you come by the Homer Henry Hudson Museum today, you will see a sign hanging on the door: The Curio Museum is CLOSED Until Further Notice.
Copyright Zack Rock, 2014, courtesy of The Creative Company
Zack Rock has written a compelling and unique picture book for adventurers of all types and ages. Part motivation and part cautionary tale, this story of the once intrepid explorer turned tremulous caretaker has a mysterious, treasure-around-every-corner quality that will appeal to kids. The life of Homer Henry Hudson is told through the display cards that accompany some of the museum’s curios. As the story develops through the cards’ personal notes, readers learn of the museum’s true owner and the life-altering decision he makes.
Rock’s illustrations in greens and parchment-paper golds and browns have a high “Oh, Cool!” factor as the odd, ancient, and unusual objects of the museum invite kids to explore every nook and cranny of the pages. The exhibits serve not only to fill the museum, however; they remind us how easily the future can get overshadowed and crowded out by the past.
Ages 6 – 10
The Creative Company/Creative Editions, 2014 | ISBN 978-1568462608
To discover more about Zack Rock and his books and to view a gallery of his artwork, visit his website!
What Will be Your Legacy Month Activity
Legacy Letter Page
If you were building a museum about your life, what would you put in it? Write or draw about what you would put in your museum on this printable Legacy Letter Page
Picture Book Review
celebratepicturebooks.com 