Trenc's original book, The Night at the Museum, is a picture story book for children about Hector, a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, New York. On his first night at the job, he wakes up to find all of the dinosaur skeletons have vanished. He finds nothing looking around the museum, Central Park, and at the planetarium next door. Eventually Hector discovers that the dinosaurs come alive every night, and rather than keep the museum safe from the world outside, his job is to keep the world outside safe from the dinosaurs inside.
A re-release was later brought to the American Museum of Natural History with a "now a major motion picture" sticker on it. This version changes Hector's name to Larry to resemble the main character of the movie.
Release details
Trenc, Milan. (1993) The Night at the Museum. Woodbury, NY: Barron's Educational Series, (ISBN0812064003)
Goldman's version of the book, Night at the Museum, is an expanded version of Trenc's story. However, in this story every exhibit in the museum comes to life. After Larry tells his son about the strange things he sees at work every night, the son spends a night at the museum and finds out that the stories his father tells him are true.
