Greg Call

Ruthie thinks nothing exciting will ever happen to her until her sixth-grade class visits the Art Institute of Chicago, where she and her best friend Jack discover a magic key that shrinks them to the size of gerbils and allows them to explore the Thorne Rooms--the collection of sixty-eight miniature rooms from various time periods and places--and discover their secrets.

Cordelia, Brendan, and Eleanor Walker, aged fifteen to eight, must rely on a mysterious book to face the Wind Witch and her father, the Storm King, who have kidnapped Dr. and Mrs. Walker and brought them to a strange world of magic.

In the fifth century A.D., as order retreats from Britain with the departing Roman Army, orphaned, twelve-year-old Kringle determines to rescue his beloved guardian from the evil goblins who terrorize the countryside by kidnapping and enslaving humans and, in the process, with the help of elves and others along the way, discovers his true destiny.

A magical coin coin leads sixth-graders Ruthie and Jack to 1753 Massachusetts and to Jack's pirate ancestor when they return to the Art Institute of Chicago's miniature Thorne Rooms on a mission to restore an African American family's reputation.

With their last adventure just barely over, the Walker kids thought life could finally go back to normal. They escaped Dahlia Kristoff, the evil Wind Witch, yet again, and this time, they managed to leave with a mysterious treasure map, recovered from their encounter with the Nazis. But things don't remain calm for long...their friend the colossus Fat Jagger turns up in San Francisco Bay, and he's in danger. With the police closing in, the Walkers...

Ruthie and Jack thought that their adventures in the Thorne Rooms were over . . . until miniatures from the rooms start to disappear. Is it the work of the art thief who's on the loose in Chicago? Or has someone else discovered the secret of the Thorne Rooms' magic? Ruthie and Jack's quest to stop the thief takes them from modern day Chicago to 1937 Paris to antebellum South Carolina. But as more items disappear, including the key that allows them...