Children's museums become an essential part of our play menu. Here are 4 famous muse-ums for families.

KidsQuest Children's Museum

It features huge windows, beautifully designed exhibits and an adventurous, two-story rope ladders in the opening gallery. Kids of all ages will love building with real tools in the re-cycled room, running the cash register, doing physics experiments on water in the Water Lab and much more. Reservations are required. You can make them online.

Imagine Children's Museum

Imagine Children's Museum's new 33,000-square-foot expansion doubles the museum's previous play space and its shows. At over 60,000 square feet, its current area is much bigger than other local children's museums (which average around 10,000-20,000 square feet). Visitors can spend hours in the museum.

Children's Museum of Tacoma

At 10,000 square feet in size, the Children's Museum of Tacoma has a huge draw. Since it opened about a decade ago, it has offered pay-as-you-will admission and has no plans to change that anytime soon. This means that you can stop off for an hour, without worrying about whether you've gotten your money's worth.

Seattle Children's Museum

This kid-favorite spot is located on the lower level of the Seattle Center Armory building. Long-time museum lovers will notice a new exhibit, a post office where kids can weigh packages and slide behind the driver's seat to make pretend deliveries.

We've all done it before-dropped a box of unwanted household belongings at a flea market and driven off with a sense of accomplishment. But have you ever stopped to think about where those items actually go?

Business journalist Adam Minter began considering this while cleaning out his late mother's home. Seeking reassurance that his mother's donated items would be put to good use rather than destroyed, he started a journey worldwide that resulted in his latest book, "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale". He found the industry significantly in the dark, with a disturbing lack of data on secondhand goods, despite their crucial role in clothing, furnishing and educating people worldwide. 

In this book, Minter fully reveals himself as an investigative journalist. He doesn't shy away from the commonly-accepted assumptions about the global trade in used goods. First, Minter questions the idea that shipments of secondhand clothes from developed countries to Africa have destroyed local textile industries （纺织业）. That's overly simplistic, he says. He further explains that multiple factors, such as declining cotton production in local areas and economic liberation, have influenced the situation. 

Minter then explores the topic of car seats, making a statement that recycling car seats, instead of selling them secondhand, is wasteful and might compromise （危害） safety for children in developing countries. It is disturbing to say so in a society that prioritizes child safety and highlights zero risk, but when you consider the excessive caution that might endanger children's lives elsewhere, the situation starts to look different. 

Minter calls it "waste colonialism," this idea that developed countries can apply their own safety standards onto the markets of developing countries-and it's deeply wrong. Why label an used car seat or an old TV as unsafe if someone else, with different skills, is perfectly capable of repairing it and willing to use it, especially if they lack access to new products and other options?

The book explores the huge problems of handling surplus （剩余的） items and how producers discourage repairs and promote the sales of new products. Minter calls for initiatives to enhance product repairability and increase product lifetime. 

Four new books to read

The books that are included in this list can meet your reading needs at any time of year.

Nobody Will Tell You This but Me

Bess Kalb

In this book, the author shares the advice her beloved grandmother Bobby left her. Bobby was a powerful woman who should never be underestimated, and she was very knowledgeable about the family's traditions and secrets. The book proves that family bonds can endure through generations and beyond death.

We Came Here to Shine

Susie Orman Schnall

We Came Here to Shine focuses on the strong female friendship between an aspiring journalist and an unlucky actress at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Leaning on each other, these two ambitious women struggled against adversity(困境) at a time when women had little say.

A Star Is Bored

Byron Lane

Favored by television star Jonathan Van Ness, this novel is partly based on the author's experiences as the former personal assistant to Carrie Fisher, a legendary American actress. The book follows Charlie Besson, the new assistant to the Hollywood icon, Kathi Kannon. Their three-year journey together is an unforgettable adventure that is funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful.

Fast Girls

Elise Hooper

The story in Fast Girls took place during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Betty Robinson, Louise Stokes, and Helen Stephens overcame difficult pasts to attain Olympic glory as the world's fastest female athletes. Beyond the athletic journey, they also aimed to challenge the social standards of what females can achieve.