Quickie Review - "The Sixty-Eight Rooms"

There’s magic in the extraordinary Thorne Rooms of the Art Institute of Chicago and in The Sixty-Eight Rooms by first time author Marianne Malone, best friends Jack and Ruthie find themselves exploring the miniature worlds inside each of the meticulously created rooms.  It’s an old fashioned kind of fantasy, with a little bit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler added in for good measure.  There’s little to challenge the reader; everything is just a teeny bit too neat and squeaky clean, but Malone’s handling of the fantastic elements placed in her real world story is certainly entertaining.

The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone

2010, Random House

Library copy