The Sixty-Eight Rooms

Locations
Call Number: Y Fiction / Malone, Marianne
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Kids Books 4-week checkout	Y Fiction / Malone, Marianne	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Ruthie thinks nothing exciting will ever happen to her until her sixth-grade class visits the Art Institute of Chicago, where she and her best friend Jack discover a magic key that shrinks them to the size of gerbils and allows them to explore the Thorne Rooms--the collection of sixty-eight miniature rooms from various time periods and places--and discover their secrets.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

awesome submitted by iamnotonfire on July 5, 2013, 2:41pm go read it right now!!!

kind of tiresome submitted by camelsamba on August 31, 2015, 10:46pm I found this book kind of tiresome. The premise is interesting: two children find a magic key that allows them to shrink down small enough in order to visit the Thorne Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago. But their escapades - not to mention all the shrinking and enlarging and traveling across carpet and under doors - gets kind of tiresome. And every now and then Ruthie gets this shivery feeling that leads her one step further into understanding the full implications of what they can do, but also feels plopped in to advance the plot. Then add in a time travel element where they totally violates time travel rules and it gets to be too much. (Although if the people outside the rooms aren't real, does it actually violate those rules? But then again, you get clues that they ARE real. Hmmmm.)

Middle grades readers might find it magical - or maybe kids just beyond The Magic Tree House series, because it felt a bit Jack-and-Annie-esque at times (notice how close the names are? Ruthie and Jack?). Teens would likely be bored.

Good Book submitted by akkadia on July 20, 2016, 5:03pm This book does get tiresome at times but the author does a good job imagining what the world is like from a smaller point of view. This is an interesting fantasy and makes a good read but on the scale of good fantasy this book is probably in the middle. As a 10 year old reader I found the vocabulary and dialogue age-appropriate and enjoyed the book.

great series! submitted by daisyR on July 20, 2017, 5:16pm one of my favorite series!

Room submitted by Anthany on July 17, 2020, 11:44am Sixty eight room