Do you love dollhouses and all their miniature furniture and decorations? If you do, this is the book for you!At the Art Institute of Chicago there are 68 miniature rooms, just like the rooms of a dollhouse. These rooms were the idea of a real person, Mrs James Thorne, who had them built and furnished by craftspeople in the 1930s. Each room depicts a true-to-life room at some time in history, some place around the world. You can go to visit the Thorne Rooms in Chicago.
The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone is based on the real Thorne Rooms. The two main characters of this story, Ruthie and Jack, do just that on a field trip with their class. Ruthie loves these rooms and imagines what it would be like to visit or live there! When Jack finds a way to sneak into the hallway behind the rooms, they find a mysterious key. This key gives them the power to shrink and fit right into the rooms! At first it is just an adventure to explore the rooms but soon they discover mysterious objects that don't belong there. Who left them? What is the real story of the rooms?
Click here to examine photos of the real Thorne Rooms. Click on a photo to enlarge or begin slide show. Fascinating!
