Comment

olson_ys
Feb 20, 2012
If you are a girl, chances are that you once played with a dollhouse. And if you did, chances are you sometimes imagined what it would be like to live inside that dollhouse. For sixth grader Ruthie Stewart the dollhouse of her imagination isn’t just a toy she used to play with. Instead, Ruthie becomes fascinated with the elaborate Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago. This real exhibit at the museum consists of sixty-eight meticulously decorated miniature rooms representing different styles and cultures throughout history. Ruthie sees them for the first time when her class goes to the Art Institute for a field trip. Instantly transfixed by the rooms, she wonders when she’ll get to come back to the museum to see them again. She doesn’t have to wonder long. Jack, Ruthie’s best friend, stumbles across a mysterious key on the museum floor and soon the two are hatching a plan to return the next day and find out what it opens. What neither friend plans for, though, is the key’s magic ability to shrink Ruthie to the exact size necessary for her to wander through the miniature rooms. Deciding that the best way to fully explore the rooms is after the museum closes, they decide to sneak in and spend the night. This is just the beginning of their adventure as they attempt to figure out how the key works and who else has explored the rooms before them. Part mystery, part adventure, and part magic this book is for anyone who has ever seen the Thorne Rooms or who always just wanted to know what it would be like to “disappear” to another time and place.