THE MUSEUM
“To read a child’s notebook is to recover the invention of the world, and participate in the creation of identity.”
JAMES M. BRADBURNE
“In school notebooks, children’s thoughts flow under the surface and spill out when least expected.”
GIOVANNA ZOBOLI
The Museum of Children’s Notebooks in Milan is the only museum in the world that showcases the memories of childhood and adolescence through school notebooks, diaries, and letters.
The museum has a unique collection of over 2,500 documents, written by children from more than 35 countries and in more than 18 languages, dating from the late 1700s to the early 2000s. These documents are a treasure trove of history, as they reveal the past through the words of the children themselves.
In the notebooks, you can read about the children’s personal stories, their daily routines, their school and family life, their friendships, and their views on the world. These narratives are not only fascinating and touching, but also offer a rare insight into the perspective and thoughts of the young ones.
A DYNAMIC MUSEUM FOR ALL AGES
The Museum of Children’s Notebooks is a small but extremely dynamic museum, just like its ever-growing collection and the activities and projects of the organisation that runs it. The contents change and update constantly, allowing you to discover something new every time you visit.
The museum welcomes people of all ages: adults, children, and teenagers can enjoy the museum in their own way, interact with the friendly staff and volunteers, and exchange ideas and thoughts in an open and curious environment.
WHAT’S INSIDE THE MUSEUM
CHILDREN’S HISTORY TIMELINE
Here you can discover the history of childhood from 1800 to the present day through a wall that displays a variety of school notebooks from different countries and cultures. You can also read a selection of texts from these notebooks on interactive screens that are constantly updated with new content from the EXERCISE BOOK ARCHIVE, a digital platform that connects us with about 300 international volunteers who help us transcribe and translate the handwritten texts by the children.
The testimonies in the notebooks are also enriched through connections with events, anecdotes and quotations that provide reflections and insights into the world of childhood in the past.
THEMATIC SECTIONS
These sections showcase the topics and themes that children wrote about in their exercise books. The sections change regularly, so you can always discover something new and different. The young visitors of the museum can also join the conversation by sharing their thoughts and experiences in ‘white notebooks’ that are displayed in the museum. These notebooks can also become a source of inspiration for workshops and publications. The museum aims to create a dynamic dialogue between the past, the present and the future.
TEMPORARY EXHIBITION
Every few months, the museum presents a new temporary exhibition that showcases our latest research on a specific topic or theme. Along with each exhibition, we also offer a publication and a variety of workshops for children and young adults.
FLIP-THROUGH NOTEBOOKS
In this section, you can find a selection of notebooks from the museum’s collection that we have reproduced and displayed for you to enjoy. You can flip through them and discover their contents in your own style. We also keep adding new notebooks to this section, making the museum more dynamic and diverse.
THE ARCHIVE DOORS
The Museum of Children’s Notebooks started from an archive, and you can see the doors that guard the treasures we have gathered for over 20 years. We transformed these ordinary doors into something magical: if you come close to it at the right time, you will hear one of the many voices that live in the notebooks…