The Sixty-Eight Rooms Book

Ah, so much promise... largely unfulfilled.

Ruthie is bored with her life, but becomes captivated by the Throne Rooms when her sixth grade class takes a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. Her friend Jack also appreciates the rooms and has a real sense of adventure. When they find a small key that magically shrinks Ruthie to five inches tall (the perfect height to explore the Throne Rooms), they devise a plan to hide out in the Art Institute all night so that they can go exploring. In addition to getting to inhabit the miniature rooms, Ruthie and Jack realize that there is real life happening outside the windows and doors of the rooms and they end up exploring Massachusetts at the time of the Salem witch trials, and France just before the Revolution. They also learn about Christina, 16th century Duchess of Milan.

The premise has so much potential! Time travel, miniatures, shrinking and magic!!! But, it had a real problem with pacing and development. It reminded me very much of an early draft where the author is still trying to figure out the heart of the story, not a polished novel. It took way too much time for Jack and Ruthie to actually shrink and go into the rooms, then each historical period got maybe a chapter or two at most so it was hard to really connect to the era or any of the characters they met there. Also, the dialogue all felt too modern when they were in the historical times. A whole lot of time-travel-changing-history happens, like when they warn their rich French friend that a revolution might be coming or when the Puritan kid sees their flashlight. (There's also a lot of sneakiness and lying to grown-ups that I wasn't too fond of.) I got the feeling that the author wanted kids to get excited about history, by "living" it, but I didn't really get why she chose those time periods as it seems like others would be more appealing to young readers (the medieval rooms with the knights and jousting were glossed over too quickly, IMO!)

The side story about Jack's artist mom having a hard time paying the bills will probably resonate with many kids in today's economy, and while of course I enjoy a happy ending, I'm not sure it's especially realistic. A few of the side characters, like Jack's Mom and Mrs. McVitty, the cool old lady who has a vintage book shop, are well realized but I never really connected with most of the characters. I found Jack more believable/interesting than Ruthie.

For the short six discs, I kept up with this for my commute but I think I would have lost interest had I been reading it at home with other distractions/better books around. I think I'd better read
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler soon!

But, I must say the Thorne Rooms do seem really cool! I had never heard of them before this book and now I'd love to see them :-)