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    The Secret of the Key
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    The Secret of the Key
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    The Secret of the Key
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Secret of the Key

    Written by Marianne Malone

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Filled with magic, mystery, miniatures, and adventure, the Sixty-Eight Rooms is the perfect series for fans of Chasing Vermeer, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and The Dollpeople!
     
    Chicago sixth graders Ruthie and Jack think they've learned everything about the magic of the Art Institute's Thorne Rooms. But the magic starts to act strangely when Ruthie and Jack discover two rings that are out of place-and out of time-and a portal that shouldn't be open but somehow is. Ruthie and Jack follow the clues to seventeenth-century England and the Brownlow house, where they meet the Brownlow's governess, Rebecca. But Rebecca has a few secrets of her own-and she might even be in the wrong century! Can Ruthie and Jack discover the truth about Rebecca's mysterious past, or will they end up stuck in the wrong century themselves? Their quest for answers takes them from 1930s New York City and San Francisco to turn-of-the-century China. The only one who can truly answer their questions may be the woman who started it all: the room's creator, Narcissa Thorne. But to talk to Mrs. Thorne, they'll have to go back in time and find her!
     
    Unlock the magic . . . in the exciting conclusion to the Sixty-Eight Rooms Adventures!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 22, 2014
    ISBN9780553397208
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Secret of the Key

    3.5/5

    120 ratings19 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      I found the writing uninspiring and boring. The book simply seemed to lack character development.A museum in Chicago holds a miniature display of 68 rooms. Called the Throne rooms, and housed in the Art Institute, two youngsters go on a class trip and become enthralled with the display. Finding that one can shrink herself and fit in the rooms. One Star
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this fantasy, especially the mostly uninterrupted "exploration" aspect of it. This is a great book for anyone who ever wanted to live in a dollhouse! I'd never heard of the Thorne Rooms before and now I'll be sure to look them up if I'm ever in Chicago.
    • 3/5
      Uninspired fantasy about a magic key that shrinks a girl down so she can fit into dollhouse rooms. There are authors who could have made a great book out of that premise, but this one didn't. The kids seemed very young for their ages, and the writing style made me feel like I was being talked down to. I always hate that -- as though the text had to be dumbed down in order for me to understand it. I've read my obligatory 50 pages and I don't plan to read any more.
    • 4/5
      Ruthie, sixth grader at a private school in Chicago, feels like her life is utterly boring. She longs to be one of those people to whom something special happens. When her best friend Jack finds a strange key on their visit to the Thorne Rooms at the Chicago Art Institute, Ruthie gets her wish. She gains the ability to shrink and explore the sixty-eight fantastically detailed miniature rooms, but finds more than she bargains for inside. This book was a fun, quick read (probably I say that often, but most middle grade doesn't take long to get through). Ruthie was a very relatable character (despite my being about 16 years older than her) - she yearns for adventure and upon seeing the miniature rooms the first time, desperately wishes she could explore them. Not only was young Millie likely to feel the same way at her age, had I visited the Thorne Rooms, but as an adult I would still want to explore the tiny rooms! I would absolutely jump at the chance for some sort of magical adventure. Jack and Ruthie exploring the museum after hours reminded me of a book I read (and loved) in middle school, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and gave me a wonderful sense of nostalgia. Malone did an excellent job of describing the rooms and their different time periods, and I really did feel like I was part of the story.My one real critique would be that I felt there was nothing really at stake. I thought their adventure might involve the pair taking more risks or facing real danger, and I was a little let down. But I still enjoyed the book and I will be purchasing the next three in the series!Also the cover design is fabulous, as well as the decorative font selection and the key elements throughout the book. There are a handful of full page illustrations and those were alright - nothing mind-blowing, so I could take them or leave them.
    • 3/5
      This story of sixth-graders Jack and Ruthie, who find a magical key at a museum that allows them to shrink down to explore the doll house exhibit, will capture the imaginations of recent graduates of The Magic Treehouse series. There's a little too much telling rather than showing, which drags the narrative down, but overall a pleasant and predictable story with some history and mystery thrown in.
    • 2/5
      Perhaps I will need a visit to the real Thorne Rooms at the Chicago Institute of Art to inspire me to tackle this book again. The premise was good but the writing not so much.
    • 3/5
      This children's story mostly takes place in the Thorne Rooms of the Art Institute of Chicago, which are filled with tiny rooms packed with miniatures accurately representing different periods of history. Jack and Ruthie visit the Throne Rooms on a class field trip to the museum, and they find a mysterious key on the floor that has the ability to shrink Ruthie down to five inches tall. With Jack's help, she explores some of the rooms, but the kids decide to come back and spend the night, and this is when the adventures begin. Reminiscent of "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", Ruthie and Jack struggle to figure out how to get in and how of the rooms when they are small, and they battle a giant cockroach as well. They also discover that they can enter the past through these rooms, and they visit late 17th century France and 16th century Puritan America. Although I enjoyed the premise of the book, I had a hard time getting into the story. This book had all of the elements that should have made it a great read: museum, miniatures, magic, time travel, etc. However, there didn't actually seem to be much of a plot, other than explore the rooms and avoid getting caught. I thought that the parts where they visited the other time periods lacked purpose and unity, and they really could have been made into something much more than they were. I guess I wanted more of a mystery for them to solve, something that would justify their lying and sneaking into the museum after hours. Overall, it felt like something magical was always just around the next corner, but it never quite materialized.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this optimistic and positive book. It seemed that everything turned out fine in the end. I really enjoyed the mixture of history and art. I hadn't heard of the Thorne Rooms and actually thought that she made them up. I was corrected in my thinking after reading the "author's note" upon completion of the book. I read the book in one day (it was a very easy read) and couldn't put it down. I found it intriguing, relaxing, and happy. I would definitely recommend this book to all lover's of children's fantasy fiction.I also have to add that I enjoyed the descriptions of the rooms so much that I immediately went online and purchased a catalog of the Thorne Rooms.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this a whole lot more that I did. I ended up just getting annoyed with the kids. What I really wanted, I guess, was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg, only set in the Thorne Rooms of the Art Institute of Chicago (one of my Favorite Places on Earth.)
    • 3/5
      The idea behind "The Sixty-Eight Rooms" is positively delightful. Two children who are enamoured by the Thorne Rooms, miniature rooms, at the museum find themselves magically able to get small and get inside the rooms. These are some inventive kids and they do a great job of working everything out so that the adults aren't suspicious. The first, and most glaring, problem was that Jack and Ruthie did not act their supposed ages. They were supposed to be in 6th grade which really means the kids are around 11 or 12. They talk and act much younger than that. Their views of the world would match a much younger person. Then their physical actions are those of much older kids. They are allowed to go downtown in Chicago by themselves...this includes going into and touring the museum. The parents hardly blink. I have an 11 year old and I would hard pressed to let him play in the next neighborhood over without an adult with him. So in the context of this book, extremely naive and innocent for their age 11 or 12 year olds are allowed to wanter the city of Chicago by themselves. Nope. No way. Credibility is lost right away. The other thing thing that didn't work for me is that every character we meet in the book somehow is able to help them in their quest. Maybe this is just tight writing, but I just felt each step of the problem was too easy to solve. Again this may be just great for the younger book readers out there, but it just doesn't feel true. The depictions of the miniature rooms and the historical travels were impressive and very cute and fun. I am amazed at the true details the author has written about. She obviously has a great handle on her subject matter and it really comes through in the book. I felt like I was in the museum and looking into those rooms. That is truly an amazing thing when a book is that detailed and rich. Unfortunately the characterization was just off which made the rest of the book feel 'off' as the well. I think kids will enjoy the book, but its not one of those an adult can read and enjoy as well.
    • 5/5
      similar to "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," very cute story of 2 kids on an adventure in the Art Institute in Chicago
    • 2/5
      Who hasn't imagined being small enough to live in a dollhouse and use the marvelously tiny furnishings? Eleven-year-old Ruthie lives that dream when her friend Jack finds a magic key behind the Art Institute of Chicago's Thorne Rooms, a series of intricately and elaborately outfitted period rooms. The key shrinks Ruthie down to an appropriate size to explore the rooms up close. Only girls seem to be able to access the magic, though Ruthie later discovers if she holds Jack's hand, he can shrink along with her. They then have to devise ways to boost themselves up to the rooms' level, which takes up a tedious portion of this slow-paced fantasy. Aside from a battle with a cockroach and a few stray arrows in the medieval room, the perils of being 5 inches tall are few, and the excitement -- and superb writing -- of either the Borrowers or the Indian in the Cupboard books is decidedly lacking.A nice souvenir of a Chicago visit, but the rooms themselves are far more enticing.
    • 3/5
      I was disappointed that this was only rather middling. I loved the premise -- during a school field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, sixth grader Ruthie and her friend Jack discover a magical way of exploring the miniature Thorne Rooms. Which, obviously, are awesome. Unfortunately, once there, the adventures of Ruthie and Jack come across as fairly generic, there wasn't much spark. It had a lot of things I tend to like -- miniatures, afterhours at the museum, time travel, old mysteries, and I still found myself checking to see how many pages I had left to go. (That many? Oh.) Another funny feature is that a lot of time is spent on the mechanics of how Ruthie and Jack get into the various rooms, I was surprised by this. Once I got the concept down, I didn't need it repeated EVERY TIME. Grade: B-Recommended: It's not terrible, but I was expecting more based on the terrific set-up. It would probably be especially interesting to Chicago kids who are familiar with the Thorne Rooms.
    • 3/5
      Ruthie's class wraps up a school field trip to Art Institute of Chicago with a visit to the Thorne Rooms- a collection of 68 miniature rooms. Ruthie becomes a little obsessed with the tiny perfection of the rooms and the princess-like quality of one room in particular. She imagines herself sleeping in such a wonderful bed, very different from the crowded room she shares with her older sister.Ruthie's best friend Jack's mother, a struggling but well known local artist, strikes up a conversation with Mr. Bell, one of the museum guards. She discovers that he was a famous photographer, but gave up his work when his wife died. Jack talks Mr. Bell into letting him take a quick peak into the corridor that runs behind the rooms, just to see how everything is set up and maintained. While looking in the underwhelming corridor slash storage room, Mr.Bell tells them how is daughter used to do her homework in the corridor while he was at work. On the way out, Ruthie sees Jack pick something up of the floor and pocket it.Later on Jack shows Ruthie a lovely and intricate key that he found on the corridor floor. When Ruthie holds it, she begins to shrink. They then discover that whatever Ruthie hold also shrinks. Both kids are then able to shrink and explore the Thorne Rooms. These explorations lead quickly become out of the ordinary when the kids discover that each room is linked to the living past. In addition to being able to go back in time, Ruthie and Jack find clues in the Thorne Rooms that indicate they aren't the first people to be inside them.Malone spent a lot of time describing the rooms, but it was hard to imagine how perfect each miniature room was without pictures. The characters were diverse and fairly believable, especially their reactions to going back in time or fighting giant bugs. I also liked how Ruthie and Jack did some creative problem solving to get past obstacles when they were shrunk. I did find that the story lagged at times, generally when the author was going into a lot of descriptive detail.The story was similar to The Wright Three or From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Unlike The Wright Three, the historical aspect didn't get overly detailed or confusing. There was just enough history to support the story, be interesting, and maybe encourage readers to find out more on their own.Verdict: Despite the fact that the story had some slow parts, this was an interesting and easy to follow story. There were several mysteries, but not all were solved, but as one character points out that's part of the fun. If you, or a child you might buy for, liked From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, then I would recommend getting this book. Otherwise, I would say check it out from your local or school library. That being said, I do plan on ordering this book for my school library, along with a picture book of the actual Thorne Rooms. I think that this book would appeal to manyl of my students.
    • 3/5
      Ruthie is pretty sure that nothing interesting will ever happen to her until she and her best friend Jack discover a key in the hall behind the Thorne Rooms while on a field trip at Chicago's Art Institute. Even more interesting is the fact that the key shrinks Ruthie down to the perfect scale to enter these scale models and she discovers that the rooms are not merely carefully-crafted works of art, but gateways into the era they have been made to represent. Along with Jack, Ruthie decides that she has finally found adventure and now they plan to explore the rooms and learn as much as they can about the magic behind them. This book is one of those strange examples of a novel [perhaps only in my collection] in which there is no antagonist. There is no great evil or nefarious force plotting the demise of these curious children. Rather, they are a pair of ye olde school kids, a level-headed and responsible girl with her best friend the vivacious and distractable boy, who happen to discover the key [accurately enough] to something they would never had imagined themselves. Though the main tension in the story is that of the children trying to learn the secrets of the rooms, there are external side-plots to build the characters and provide a wider base of reality. Jack's mother, the painter, is having a tough time and the possiblility of them having to move is an unpleasant distraction. Mr. Bell the charming photographer gone museum guard is a pleasant character with a sad past that befriends them in their initial excursions. The book itself was pleasant and easy to read, but something captured me. This concept of a gallery of rooms, recreated in miniature. Part of it is because of the recent film Coraline, made in stop-motion minatures with an elaborate beauty that came from sheer accuracy and grace in depiction. Reading about Ruthie and these rooms hooked me in a moment, and when I learned that there may be a world beyond what the facade shows, my natural yearning for adventure and interest was piqued, much like Ruthie's. Malone describes the girl's interest, as well as the rooms, with natural ease--possibly from personal experience. The most fabulous thing about the book, however, is not about the book at all. It is the fact that I learned the Thorne Rooms really exist! Fortunately for me, a broke Pennsylvanian, there is the internet and plenty of photos of these miraculous miniatures to peruse at my leisure. I hope you'll do the same.
    • 4/5
      Two children become small enough to explore and have adventures in the Thorne Rooms (which become real places in the book) at the Chicago Institute of Art. What a great idea for a story. I had to order the Thorn Rooms book from the museum just to follow along with the children and to enjoy some adventures of my own.
    • 4/5
      I got this book through the Amazon Vine program as an advanced reading copy. As such, it is missing the final drawings in the book so I can't address those. The description of this book reminded me of a book that I loved as a child "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler". It ended up being a very enjoyable book to read.Ruthie and Jack are on a field trip to the Chicago Institute of Art where they get to see the Throne Rooms; 68 rooms built in miniature. They convince one of the guards to give them a tour of the corridor behind the rooms and while back there they find a silver key. The key causes Ruthie to shrink; her and Jack embark on a series of adventures in the miniature Throne Rooms as they try to unravel the mysteries of the rooms.There were a lot of things I liked about this book. The setting is very cool. I did not know about the Throne rooms and now I really want to go to Chicago and see them! The descriptions are well done and the plot was engaging. Malone wove a lot of wisdom and life lessons into this story as well. The idea that the rooms lead to history is very cool too. Overall I enjoyed Malone's writing style and thought this was a very creative story. Ruthie and Jack are believable characters and Malone does a good job developing the side characters as well.There were a couple things I had problems with. The dialogue between Ruthie and Jack is really awkward in the beginning of this book. As the book continued that was fixed, but it was like Malone needed some time to get used to the characters' personalities before she could get the dialogue smoothed out. I also thought that Malone took too long to get to the meat of the story; it took almost half of the book to get to the point where they shrink down and explore the rooms. I really wish Malone had got to the point where they explore the rooms quicker and then we could have read more about their exploring! I also wish we had gotten to see more rooms with Ruthie and Jack, they really only ended up exploring a handful of them.Overall this was a good read, appropriate for all ages. I liked the writing style and the overall story. I wish that the beginning had been shortened up a bit so that we could have spent more time with Ruthie and Jack in the Throne Rooms. I get the feeling there may be a sequel in the making because there are a couple things at the end of the story that hint at adventures to come. If that it is the case, I will most likely check out Malone's next book too!
    • 4/5
      The first in an adventure series. I thought it was very well written and reminded me of Konigsburg's "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler". It's a great read for middle grade readers and a very unique concept. It offers a bit of magic, a bit of adventure, and a bit of history. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
    • 4/5
      The magic of miniatures and the love they can engender is well handled in this tribute to the Thorne Rooms. The action doesn't have a smooth or deft flow, it is a first novel. The plotting originally didn't work for me, I was hoping perhaps for more fantasy based story telling, but as it developed I was reconciled to its more mundane impact.