The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone
Summary (from book jacket)
Almost everybody who has grown up in Chicago knows about the Thorne Rooms. Housed deep within the Art Institute of Chicago, they are a collection of sixty-eight exquisite-almost eerily realistic-miniature rooms. Each of the rooms is designed in the style of a different time and place, and every detail is perfect, from the knobs on the doors to the candles in the candlesticks. Some might even say the rooms are magical.
Imagine...what if, one a field trip, you discovered a key that allowed you to shrink so that you were small enough to sneak inside and explore the rooms' secrets? What if you discovered that others had done so before you? And that someone had left something important behind?
Personal Thoughts
As an avid fan of miniatures and shrinking people in stories, I was looking forward to this book. I always believed that dollhouses (with their roomfulls of miniature furniture) housed secrets us larger people where never destined to know. I enjoyed this book. It wasn't packed full of action or even a lot of mystery, but it was an enjoyable read. I do have to say that it was a little predictable and left several questions unanswered. However, despite this, I would recommend this book to anyone who ever wished they could eat off of those pefect, tiny china plates with their dolls.
