Twelve-year-old Sarah Greene and her best buds, West and Hannah, love mastering escape rooms together. And now they’re about to face their most epic, brain-racking challenge ever: an abandoned funhouse built in the 1940s.
Twelve-year-old Sarah Greene and her best buds, West and Hannah, love mastering escape rooms together. And now they’re about to face their most epic, brain-racking challenge ever: an abandoned funhouse built in the 1940s.
If it were up to Sarah and her best friends, West and Hannah, they’d become professional escape-room busters.
For instance, they recently bested the Lasers and Lava room—the second-hardest escape room at Escape City! They’re one of only seven teams ever to do so. And those others were all adults!
OK, there’s probably no such thing as a professional escape-room beater, but it would be cool if there was. I mean, Sarah could use a job like that. The fact is, she could use the money from any kind of job right about now.
You see, Sarah’s family is in financial trouble. Her dad got sick and can’t work, so now her mom is working two jobs just to make ends meet. But those stupid ends aren’t meeting so well. The foreclosure notice that Sarah found stuck to their front door attests to that.
If things keep going like this, Sarah and her family will probably have to go live at her grandparent’s house in Michigan. And that will mean the end of Sarah’s escape-room team. It might even be the end of their … friendships. That would be one sad day!
There is one chance for Sarah to help fix things though. It’s a crazy longshot, but Hannah and West have both said they’re onboard to give it a try. They’re going to try to beat … The Funhouse.
Rumors about the abandoned funhouse—sitting just outside the nearby town of Maplewood—tantalizingly whisper that there’s a treasure hidden in the house for anyone who can master its riddles and puzzles. Yeah, OK, it’s probably all made up. But the funhouse is real. And what if—what if!?—the treasure is too!
It was created in the 1940s by triplet brothers who decided to build the most creative and elaborate funhouse ever. They spent a fortune on it, but never opened it to the public. That’s because one of the brothers died in a tragic accident. The other two abandoned the joint project soon after. And the strange, multicolored building has sat empty ever since.
Several people have been arrested for trying to break in and tackle the challenge held within, but no one has mastered it. The only thing that’s leaked out has been about how difficult the first challenges were. Oh, and the treasure. The rumors about the funhouse and its treasure have kept buzzing about, too.
So now Sarah and her pals, the Deltas, will strive to avoid being spotted, find a way in, and figure out the funhouse’s dusty and cobwebbed mysteries.
Their efforts might not result in piles of gold, but there’s one thing for sure: The funhouse will be the biggest challenge that the Deltas have ever faced.
How fun is that?
There are no faith-focused themes running through this story, but …
… There are different challenges labeled with different symbols. One of those is a horseshoe, which the kids determine represents a choice of chance or “luck.” By the end of the funhouse adventure, Sarah declares that she now believes in luck.
We only meet Sarah’s mom and dad briefly in the course of the story. They’re loving parents who are concerned about their daughter, though they’re also very stressed. But Mom and the other parents all drop everything when they believe the kids might be in trouble.
The three friends are consistent and supportive as they each struggle with feelings of weakness. In fact, each of these kids is challenged by the house to face their own personal fears and to learn how to use her strengths and the strengths of others to overcome fearful obstacles.
The Stein triplets, we learn, were separated and adopted by three different families as kids. And they came back together as adults with a desire to create something special that families and fun-lovers could experience together.
One kid exclaims, “Holy crap!” several times. But that’s as problematic as the language ever gets here.
The kids also face a few perilous and dangerous challenges in the funhouse itself. One of those, for instance, involves the three of them swinging on a rope that’s suspended about 30 feet above the floor. Other mildly perilous situations involve heavy objects, taking painful tumbles and navigating rickety slides that any observing parent would say “Don’t you dare!” in any normal, real-life situation.
In fact, this whole adventure in a very old, abandoned building would be something that anyone over the age of 12 would likely balk at.
The Delta Team is made up of two girls and a boy, but we don’t see anything other than close, sincere friendship between them.
A big part of this tale focuses on the kids’ friendships and how they support one another through their personal fears.
To dig deeper on these themes, take a look at Psalm 46:1-3, 1 John 4:18 and John 14:27. These verses say that God can help us when we’re afraid. How do you think He does that?
Sarah had some very real things to be afraid of, with her dad being sick and her mom working so hard. How do you think you would respond if you were in Sarah’s situation? Do you have friends to rely on? Could you turn to God for help?
Did you enjoy the puzzles and riddles of the funhouse? Did you figure out any answers before Sarah and her friends did? What was your favorite room in the house?
The Mystery of Locked Rooms is definitely written with kids in mind. Logic and reasoning that older readers might reject are, in fact, perfectly positioned for younger imaginations. In addition, we also get some nice lessons here about working to your strengths and overcoming your fears with the help of good friends.
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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