I Just Read About That…

[LISTENED TO: November 5, 2014] Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

We were looking for an audiobook for a recent trip and I decided to get Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.  I didn’t know anything about it, but the title sounded fun, especially for two librarians.

Well, I had no idea how much fun it would be for two librarians (and for others, too, I assure you).

So Mr Lemoncello is a game maker.  He has hundreds and hundreds of board games and in this universe, everyone loves playing them.  In the very first scene, Kyle Keeley and his brothers are playing Mr Lemoncello’s Indoor-Outdoor Scavenger Hunt (which is just what it sounds like).  In an attempt to finally beat his brothers, Kyle tries to sneak back into his house through a basement window (thereby saving the time of going down the stairs.  He inadvertently breaks the window and is grounded or a week (although he did win, so that’s something–and it shows just how intensely they play games in that family).

The next chapter opens up on the finishing touches of the brand new library in Kyle’s town.  Alexandriaville, Ohio has not had a library for 12 years and Mr Lemoncello’s gift to the town is the coolest most state of the art library ever built.  (Seriously, it is practically every librarian’s fantasy library with books and books and books (rooms coded by dewy number) and all kinds of high tech gadgetry to go with it.  I would love to see this place built).

Kyle is bummed about being grounded.  And to make matters worse, he forgot about the extra credit essay contest “Why I am excited about the new public Library.” At the last minute he throws together a lousy essay (which consists of “Balloons. There might be balloons,” and he is laughed at by just about everyone.  But when the essay winners are announced (12 of them), he is the final winner–how could that be?

The other winners include his best friend Akimi Hughes, his other friend Miguel Fernandez and a hodgepodge of other kids.  Andrew Peckleman (who thinks everything is stupid), Haley Daley (whom everyone thinks is stupid), Rose Vermette, Kayla Corson, Bridgette Wadge (with a terribly unfortunate name), Yasmeen Smith-Snyder, Sierra Russell (a book lover who spends much of the story reading), Sean Keegan, and Charles Chiltington (who quickly reveals himself to be a not very nice person who feel entitled to everything).

Part of their prize for winning the essay contest is a gift certificate to Mr Lemoncello’s store.  But the big prize is that they all get to explore the new library before anyone else–there will be food and full access to all of the awesome amenities in the building.  And they have an amazing time with the video labs, and the books and the holograms and the food.

But when the kids get ready to leave, they learn that the real contest is about to begin.  They are invited to participate in the game–they will have twenty-four hours to escape from the library.  The only clue they are given at the start is that they cannot go out the way they came in, they cannot go out any windows, and they cannot call anyone for help.  Also, there will be a security guard at the front door the entire building is under surveillance to make sure no one gets hurt or wants to quit.

But they have a wealth of information at their disposal, including the holographic librarian, all manner of virtual reality stuff and some of the highest tech high tech library shelving units ever.  No to mention just about every book ever published.  The prize is practically Willy Wonkaish–they will become a part of the Lemoncello empire, appearing in commercials and gaining all kinds of fortune.

A few kids decide not to do it (before learning of the prizes), while the rest are game.  But there are ways to get kicked out of the game–breaking any of the above rules, losing an extreme challenge (which will give you great hints, but at a great price if you fail), and being mean to another player.

The bulk of the book concerns the players trying to find out clues to this challenge.  And there are many different clues available–some are easy to find, while others take a lot of work–and in early stages it’s not even clear how the clues can help.  I’m certainly not going to go into details about the puzzles, but they have to do mostly with books and pages and rebuses and other puzzles.  It’s a lot of fun to try to figure them out.

And so as the challenges grow more difficult, alliances are formed–one with our hero and one with his nemesis (who gets smarmier by the chapter).  And all of the kids prove to be much smarter than 12 year olds have a right to be

I really loved this book.  The mystery was fun (although it is one that no reader could ever figure out on her own.  While the individual challenges can be figured out, the actual escape is not solvable for the reader because since we don’t know details about the fictional building).  I loved how the stakes grew higher–would anyone escape?  And worse, would it be Charles?  (whose uncle is the head Librarian at the Library of Congress!)

Of course, if you love books and puzzles, there are pleasures galore as he names dozens of books and authors either as hints or clues or answers to clues.  Sarah shrieked with delight at hearing some of her favorite books mentioned, and I laughed in recognition when he mentioned the author that I was currently reading (Pseudonymous Bosch).  You’ll learn a lot about the Dewey Decimal system and, most importantly, you’ll learn just how much your library has to offer (even if it’s not as awesome as this one).

If there was one problem I had with the book it was that at times the kids seemed incredibly dumb.  It seemed especially true if Kyle made a joke of some kind, then one of the other kids (who had just done something astonishingly clever) seemed to not get it so that Kyle then had to explain it (presumably so the audience would get it too).  It is entirely possible that the “dumbness” of the characters was in the reading by Jesse Bernstein. Bernstein did a great job with so many characters–he made the main characters very distinctive, (although I actually thought that Dr Zinchenko (“the world famous librarian”–I love it) sounded Indian not Russian (and actually so did Mr Lemoncello).  So when Kyle said something and (on several occasions) his friends responded with “what?” (even though I knew what he was talking about) I fear that he made them sound kind of clueless instead of maybe surprised?  It’s hard to explain without an example though, I admit.

But aside from that, he did a great job with the narration and I found it very easy to keep the characters apart (something that’s not always so easy in a complex audio book like this).

So yes, if you’re a librarian, you will get a lot of inside jokes, but even if you’re not, the book is a lot of fun.  Incidentally, Sarah knew a few of the people who were named in the book (real people’s names are used although not in their actual context).  Gail Tobin is a real librarian (although not a hologram) and Amy Alessio (author, librarian, speaker) is a real person as well (although I don’t believe she wrote the book that it claims she did).

This book was a lot of fun, and now that I see that Grabenstein has other books out, I’m interested in reading (or listening to) them too.