The only sell-out moment for me is the presence of a certain fast-food chain in small-scale replica. Children's museums should be a sanctuary from product placement and other strains of commercialism, but children get a few unfortunate doses of it at the new Please Touch, this being the most blunt.
BELIEVE YOU CAN FLY
Walk up from City Capers and you land in Flight Fantasy, where, from a fairly high perch, you can power a pedal plane and physically interact with a number of flight-related displays. Perhaps the best use of Memorial Hall's verticality happens in one of the tall corner rooms: At Flying Machine, you construct a plane from precut foam shapes - then hook it to a belt, hoist it to the top of a 40-foot-high tower, and watch it fly (or not).
Tired parents cooled their heels and read newspapers in another of these tall corner rooms, the Creativity Room, while children painted, molded clay and stacked blocks.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Roadside Attractions brings together the SEPTA bus, cars, and, amid Center City skyscraper replicas, a working elevator disguised as the Mellon Bank Center building. There's also art downtown. In a city park with a play vending cart, Sam Maitin's The Tree of Life has been hung, its colorful splashes echoed on the bottom with strips of plastic children can place themselves.
IT'S A GIFT
The gift shop is especially well-done, a quiet, roomy space in the bright arcade at the front of the building. The book selection is a thoughtful collection of children's classics and texts relating to history. The toys lean to the educational, art supplies and, most cunning, the hands-on spirit of the museum. If you had trouble pulling your child away from the cash register in the mock supermarket, for instance, you can demonstrate for her real commerce in action and buy the exact model on your way out. $42, plus tax.
