ABSTRACT
Tales of journeys to dimly known times fascinate us and have made such works as H.G.Wells’ The Time Machine, C.S.Lewis’ The Chronicles ofNarnia, Edward Eager’s The Time Garden, and Jon Scieszka’s The Time Warp Trio favorites among adults and children. Readers observe time travelers as they touch, smell, and taste the past, meeting unusual historic “characters” along the way. They enjoy seeing how ordinary people learn to cope in the past by casting off old assumptions and accepting new “old” ways of doing things. This study also follows ordinary people as they venture to another time via the means of a living history museum. We chronicle the explorations and conversations of five families through Prairietown, a recreated 1836 village at Conner Prairie, Indiana, as we seek to understand and describe the impact of a transporting experience on family learning.
