sb3- The False Prince.- Jennifer A. Neilsen -Finished-

This book is great. It is a bit on the darker subject of things, but the POV Character Sage is witty sarcastic and cunning which really drives the story.
The idea is, A kingdom is on the brink of civil war, and the royal family has been murdered. A the bout four years ago however, youngest son Jaron's ship was attacked by pirates when he was off to go to a foreign school. In order to bring the kingdom back together, one of the late King's Regents, a nobleman named Conner, buys four orphan boys in order to train them in two weeks to effectively impersonate Jaron before the one of the other Regents takes the crown and pushes everything down the sink.

Treason. Lovely.

From here on there will be spoilers so if you want to read the book feel free to just stop here.

The irony in the story is, the POV character Sage, who wins the contest and is chosen to be the one out of the three of them (the fourth gets killed off like 24 pages in as an example so the others won't run away) is actually Prince Jaron. Before the ship had actually set off, he had snuck off the ship through the porthole in his bunk, so he wasn't even on the ship to begin with! His father found him and told him to stay hidden, probably expecting something to happen where he'd need to step up to the throne. When they parted for the last time he gave him a stone of fools gold, and gave his highest Regent a note saying if a boy claims to be Prince Jaron, and gives you fools gold saying it's real, it is him; or something along those lines. That's a rough draft of what happens, I left out quite a bit so there's still quite a lot to the story if you read all of this and would like to read the other two books. You'll still need to read the first one.

 

The Sixty-Eight Rooms sb2 *Spoilers*

Okay, so I've already done the basics of the story without revealing any of the stuff you would rather learn as you read it for the courtesy of people who do want to read it themselves; now It's time to continue to what I really liked about the book, with the spoilers for the people who don't want to read it.

I'm going to start with this right off the bat. So you know how there's backdrops for the outsides of the rooms? Well, when Ruthie and jack shrink down, they aren't backdrops anymore. They're actually back in time! Which was actually rather stressful for me reading it because the two historical times they went to (in proper clothing they found) were barely pre-revolutionary France, and a town near Salem Massachusetts during the summer of the Witch Trials.

Oh yeah because those are just such safe places to be in when your practically time travelers who know barely enough history about the time you're in to not be hanged or arrested under some kind of suspicion. Seriously I get that the two of you are sixth graders but think about how dangerous the time period your going into is! Preferably before it's too late!

Anyway they get out fine and the two people they meet live through the historical problems so all is well.

Also two other plot lines are: Jack and his mom almost loosing their loft because she can't sell her paintings in time (solved by commissioning a huge mural in the school that will pay her off for a bit before her next fair thing she can sell at) and Mr. Bell's lost photo album. (Found in one of the miniature rooms. His daughter had found the key when she was about seven or eight and brought it there to look at after her mom died. Now he will show his photographs at the museum since the ones in that album were his favorite, of his family.)

I just really liked this book. It's apparently a series too, because there was one plot hole at the very end when Ruthie was given a fancy antique handbag by the lady at the antiques shop, who is a family friend, that gives her the same warm feeling the key did before it did it's magic. I guess I'll have to find out later!

Summer Blog 1- The Sixty-Eight Rooms finished *No spoiler eddition*

 Basic Idea of plot

No Spoilers

     Okay so the scene is set in Chicago present day where two best friends Ruthie and Jack are on a six-grade field trip to the Art Museum. After they see the exhibit that relates to the section they are on in history class about Africa,  they go in the Thorne Rooms, which are sixty-eight miniature rooms that are to perfect scale and based in parts of history like pre-revolutionary France, Colonial America, Medieval Europe, and Japan in a point of time that is in the significant past as I

understood, (At least from our time now, it could have been modern when it was made) but not elaborated on. 

      While looking at the rooms, which Ruthie is enchanted by, Jack's mom, who is a chaperone, chats with the security guard Mr. Bell. They are given access to see the corridor behind the strip of European rooms, where maintenance is done and the rooms are back lighted from. When Jack goes in, he finds a Key. A fancy old skeleton key, with the initials CM carved into it. 

     On the way home, he shows it to Ruthie and they decide to go back in order to put it where it had been found, in case it was important. They get back into the corridor, thanks to Mr. Bell. Ruthie takes it, and shockingly begins to shrink until she  is about five inches tall. Once they realize there aren't any ill-effects to the magic, Jack deposits her into one of her favourite rooms from the day before, E17, a sixteenth century French bedroom. All of the rooms seem to be connected from what I understand by how they move about,but I'm not quite sure... perhaps the tables the back parts in the corridor are all one thing and you can just walk for a bit and then get to another. Anyway, once she's done with E17 and there's still a break in the crowed, she goes to E12, an English Drawing Room from the 1800's, and finds out that the instruments like the Harpsichord and the Violin in the room are fully functioning. Out of tune, but real.  

     The rest of the story follows their adventures in the corridor at night, the findings of something lost for Mr.Bell, and worrying about whether or not Jack and his mom will get kicked out of their lot because artists cannot always sell their paintings when they need to.

Picture of E17