Ruby Sisson Library

Lift the flaps to discover what goes on in the house during one wild week.

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.

In this first volume in the series, "eight singular middle schoolers from across America find belonging in a series of escape room-type challenges. Each sixth grader assumes that winning a coveted spot to spend three days at the Octagon Valley Institute led by Willy Wonka-esque Onasander Octagon--an ethnically ambiguous multiracial tech genius--means winning a 'golden ticket to the rest of your life.' However, they soon realize that instead of an...

Chicago sixth-graders Jack and Ruthie return to the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago and once again go back in time while trying to stop an art thief from endangering the miniature rooms.

"Tess has a bad habit. She can't stop snooping through her guests' belongings . . . When Tess is forced to rent out her late sister's old room to pay the bills, the urge to rummage through her guests' belongings overtakes her every thought. Teasing herself with forbidden glimpses into the lives of strangers is a momentary thrill, but it's the closest she's felt to anyone since the mysterious death of her sister, Rosie. After her newest lodger, Arran,...