#1 New York Times bestselling author Chris Grabenstein is back with the third fantastically fun, puzzle-packed MR. LEMONCELLO adventure! On your marks. Get set. Lemon, cello, GO! Everyone’s favorite game maker, Mr. Lemoncello, is testing out his new FABULOUS FACT-FINDING FRENZY game! If Kyle can make it through the first round, he and the other lucky finalists will go on a great race—by … will go on a great race—by bicycle, bookmobile, and even Mr. Lemoncello’s corporate banana jet!—to find fascinating facts about famous Americans. The first to bring their facts back to the library will win spectacular prizes! But when a few surprising “facts” surface about Mr. Lemoncello, it might be GO TO JAIL and LOSE A TURN all at once! Could Kyle’s hero be a fraud? It’s winner take all, so Kyle and the other kids will have to dig deep to find out the truth before the GAME is OVER for Mr. Lemoncello and his entire fantastic empire!
Filled with brand-new puzzles and games (including a hidden bonus puzzle!), this fast-paced read will have gamers and readers alike racing to the finish line because, like Mr. Lemoncello’s commercials say, IS IT FUN? . . . HELLO! IT’S A LEMONCELLO!
* “An ode to libraries and literature that is a worthy successor to the original madman puzzle-master himself, Willy Wonka.” —Booklist, Starred, on Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library
“Just as much of an adventure as the first.” —The Washington Post, on Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics
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(3.5 / 5)
After a grand escape game and a library-fied version of the Olympics, Mr. Lemoncello brings his favorite 12-year-olds (though I’d guess some are probably 13 by now) a game that sends teams on a much grander adventure–across town in bookmobiles and across states in his banana jet. But trouble is afoot when Kyle’s team uncovers evidence that Mr. Lemoncello plagiarized his very first game. Will his newly honed research skills be enough to clear his hero’s name?
After loving the first book in the series and enjoying the second one as well, this one didn’t seem quite as good in the end. The required suspension of disbelief is much higher in this one, both because these kids are allowed to take private jets to other states and even NYC without any real adult supervision, and because my past observation of most of the kids just being over-the-top knowledgeable was ramped up in this one. Not only do some of these kids know just about every juvenile book ever written, plus have an extensive knowledge of the Dewey decimal system that they can mentally search whenever needed, but now some of those same kids know vast amounts of information about historical events and figures like the Wright brothers’ first flight. It’s all just a bit too much to swallow.
I did still like the puzzles and riddles along the way, though. I enjoy being able to solve some of the clues along with the kids, though that was certainly lighter in this one. The more of these grand-scale games Mr. Lemoncello dreams up, the bigger they seem to have to be, which is somewhat understandable from a fiction stand-point, but seems like it’ll be difficult to sustain. And strangely, while the game itself is grander, the prize is…considerably less so, though that might just be from an adult’s perspective.
The mystery that came up in the latter half of the book and stalled the great game was interesting, as it was quite the reflection of the way the general public will believe nearly anything if they’re given a convincing enough presentation, no matter if the facts back it up or not. Parts of the mystery were predictable, parts not so much, and in the end, while I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did the first two, I know that the things that brought it down the most for me are going to be more noticeable to an adult than the age group the book is meant for. My 10-year-old daughter loved this book as much as the previous two, and I think it’s safe to recommend it for kids around 8-12.
It’s a good addition to the series. I enjoyed how it encourages people to actually find the real facts vs just believing everything you read or hear. That was a great aspect to this book. How it connected to the rest of he series seemed a bit forced. I really enjoyed the book overall.
Easily the best volume in the series! This book starts out much like the first two entries, with the title character creating a new, exciting contest for a group of kids, but this time it takes them across the country to gather clues. Along the way, the contest gets put on hold as the various teams combine their efforts to help clear Mr. Lemoncello’s name as a thief others’ game ideas. This departure from the tried and true formula made this book stand out from the previous two, and put the intelligence and problem solving skills of the child characters to work in a very satisfying way.
Great book. Read it with my class and it took me about a week to finish. One day I couldn’t stop reading and I ended up reading 100 pages.
I read this entire series to our 11-year-old son and we both really enjoyed all of them. This one was actually my favorite of the three, but our son just couldn’t pick a favorite, he said. Mr. Lemoncello really kind of reminds of of Mr. Magorium with his puns and easy-going, kid-trusting ways and bit of smart weirdness.