This museum began in 1982 as a part of celebrating the 100th anniversary of Findlay College. Today, various regional exchange activities and events are also held.

I recently participated in the very popular museum event called “Funday Sunday,” which is held on the 1st Sunday of every month from October through April. Various areas are set up based on monthly themes, and children can do hands-on activities with their family in each area. Also, on some occasions picture book artists are invited as guests to give presentations.


The theme on the day I visited was “Magical Music.”
On that day, students from the Findlay High School Symphony Orchestra were there as guests, and as I entered the museum I could hear the beautiful sounds of violins and cellos.


At each station there were different activities associated with the theme “Magical Music.” There was also an area on Japan! Japanese exchange students from the University of Findlay were teaching kids how to make a piano out of origami as well as how to play the “Taiko no Tatsujin” drum game on an iPad.


There were also very popular areas where children could actually touch musical instruments, learn how instruments make music, get their face painted, listen to picture book readings, and make drums and guitars using items like plastic cups in the craft activity corner. There were even artists who would draw pictures on the spot, too.


The museum walls are decorated with various artworks that had been drawn at the museum by artists.


There were very cute treats for refreshments fashioned out of marshmallows and pretzels to look like drumsticks.


I was impressed by the well thought out details that even included the decorations.


This event, free and open to anyone, was organized entirely by volunteers.Currently, it is sponsored by the Fifth Third Bank (local bank),
This extremely popular event was an even greater success than usual on the day I visited, with as many as 528 people participating! The children were all smiles and looked to be having a wonderful time. I also felt a lot of that energy.
The 2nd floor was also really cute. It felt as if I’d truly entered a picture book world.


This slide that went down to the 1st floor was created around the “Alice in Wonderland” theme. It was so popular with the children that they kept lining up to go down the slide again and again.


There is also a woman named Ayane Hida who provides information on Japanese picture books here at Mazza Museum. A very friendly person with a wonderful smile, she’s the one who so kindly introduced me to this museum and event.Ayane was placed at Mazza Museum in the summer of 2015 through the Japan Outreach Initiative (JOI) program.

(JOI: This program has been jointly implemented since 2002 by The JapanFoundation Center for Global Partnership and American nonprofit, the Laurasian Institution The program sends coordinators for 2-year periods to regions in America where there are relatively few Japanese, with the aim of deepening interest in and understanding of Japan.)

Ayane not only works at the museum, but she also holds origami classes at schools in Ohio, teaches people at senior citizen centers how to hold chopsticks and write calligraphy, and conducts outreach activities at various other places. These are all things that she initiates herself by taking actions such as sending out letters and actually going to talk with people. She is working passionately as a Japanese Outreach Coordinator who shares Japanese culture here in Findlay where there are few Japanese people.


This museum apparently had very few original illustrations from Japanese authors until Ayane arrived. Thanks to her initiative to increase the collection of original artwork by Japanese picture book authors, the author Momomi Sako donated one original picture from each of her three picture books, “Where is my Partner?,” “Planting Rice at Grandpa’s House,” and “The Bird’s Song.”