Sarah and her besties West and Hannah are an incredible escape room team, the Deltas. But on the same day they successfully complete Lasers and Lava (only the seventh team to have ever done so), a foreclosure notice arrives at Sarah's house. Her family may have to move in with her grandparents - in Michigan! If the friends don't do something drastic, they will not be going to the same school anymore or visiting Escape City in the afternoons to try out new challenges. They come up with the plan to find a treasure hidden in a funhouse that never opened to the public. Others have tried over the years, but they don't have the amazing skills this team has. West has a phenomenal memory and is great at riddles and ciphers, Hannah studies ballet for years and has great dexterity and balance, and Sarah excels in math and probabilities. Together they enter the abandoned funhouse determined to save Sarah's home.
This book is so much fun, but also deals with tough issues. Sarah's family is trying to cope with her father's illness. Their situation echoes that of many who seem to be doing fine, but are just a crisis away from financial trouble. West has learned to keep his head down to avoid trouble with bullies and trolls who are jealous of his memory skills. Hannah is working through her own insecurities about giving up ballet after studying and practicing for years. Their adventure inside the funhouse highlights all their skills while also showing that they are better together. The history of the funhouse itself takes readers back to the Great Depression and how children were split up when they were orphaned because no one could afford to take in more than one more mouth to feed. The three brothers who designed and built the funhouse are like another version of the Deltas - better together.
Readers won't just have an engrossing story and learn a little history, they will also have the fun of trying to work out how the team should tackle each challenge. Is there a pattern to look for? A riddle to solve? A physical task to accomplish? By the time the story ends readers will be doing an Internet search to find the nearest escape room in their town.
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