Mr. Lemoncello's All-Star Breakout Game

This novel by Chris Grabenstein follows Kyle Keeley, a game-loving middle schooler in Alexandriaville, Ohio, as he competes in a live televised game show set inside the high-tech library built by eccentric game maker Luigi Lemoncello.

Kyle and his friends Akimi Hughes, Sierra Russell, and Miguel Fernandez get caught playing Mr. Lemoncello's new online puzzle game, What Else Do You See?, on a library computer during independent reading time. Kyle's longtime rival, Charles Chiltington, pushes for harsh punishment, and Kyle accepts full responsibility to protect his friends. Charles persuades the school librarian, Mrs. Yunghans, to increase Kyle's detentions from three to five. Charles and his wealthy family have resented Kyle's group ever since they repeatedly bested him in competitions at Mr. Lemoncello's library.

That evening, Mr. Lemoncello announces on television that he will host a live game show called the All-Star Breakout Game, filmed inside his library's brand-new Fictionasium, a labyrinth of rooms where stories come to life through holograms, computer-generated imagery, and robotic figures controlled by a supercomputer called the Narrative Drive. Contestants will be recruited from Alexandriaville Middle School, and one member of the winning team will host their own show on the Kidzapalooza Network. Both Kyle and Charles resolve to compete. Charles, desperate to prove himself to his demanding, emotionally distant father, sees the game as his chance for redemption.

Mr. Lemoncello visits the school and presents a rebus puzzle challenge. Kyle solves it just ahead of Charles. Kyle and his friends, joined by Andrew Peckleman, a classmate who was disqualified from a previous Lemoncello library game, form a team called the Lemon Heads. Charles, lacking friends, recruits four elite eighth-grade readers with gift cards and summer job promises from his father, forming the Bookworms.

Kyle's detention overlaps with auditions. He skips detention, earning two penalty detentions, and leads the Lemon Heads through three elimination rounds. Both teams advance. Charles then sends a calculated email to Kyle's parents exposing all the detentions. Kyle's parents ground him, but Akimi visits the Keeley home to explain how Kyle took responsibility for his friends and how Charles bullies Kyle about his father's blue-collar job. Kyle's father lifts the grounding on the condition that Kyle serves all remaining detentions, and encourages Kyle to make the family proud. During detention, Kyle's four teammates voluntarily join him each day to read fiction together, preparing for the game.

At orientation, Mr. Lemoncello explains the rules. Each team receives a codex, a large locked book sealed with five differently colored locks corresponding to five fiction genres. Players use augmented-reality smartphone apps to find hidden entry points in the library's fiction wall, then solve puzzles inside each genre room to unlock their codex, find a key, and use it to unlock the library's front door and break out first. He also announces a third team of Kidzapalooza television stars, including Haley Daley, a former Alexandriaville classmate now starring in Hey, Hey, Haley, and singer Gabrielle Grande.

On game day, Mr. Lemoncello distributes GOOHFER (Get Out of Here Free Emergency Rescue) cards, which allow any player to drop out at any time through a trapdoor exit. The library is sealed and the broadcast begins with a two-hour clock. Each team's genre rooms push players outside their comfort zones. The Lemon Heads enter the Comic Book Room, where Sierra leads a flying bombardment to defeat a villain and finds the red lock's combination. In the Sports Room, Miguel thrives as a fictional football star, and Kyle solves a riddle to open the green lock. In the Fairy Tale Room, Akimi outsmarts a king's rigged gamble by eating the evidence, and a jester's dance steps provide the purple lock's combination.

Charles's team fares worse. In the Horror Room, two teammates quit in fear. Charles slips into the unattended Narrative Drive control room, views the Mystery Room's solution on a monitor, and solves it instantly. His father begins texting him instructions, including an order to sabotage the other teams. Charles presses a lockdown button, sealing all entrances so no one can intervene, then accidentally unleashes a Minotaur on his own remaining teammates, who both quit. Now the sole Bookworm, Charles copies answers from the computer and races through his final rooms at record speed, stunning the audience.

Charles's sabotage also affects the other teams. He injects holographic threats into the All-Stars' rooms, causing several celebrity players to quit until only Haley and Gabrielle remain. In the Lemon Heads' Humor Room, Andrew must make an audience of zombies laugh. He overcomes his discomfort with comedy, delivers zombie jokes, and opens the blue lock.

For the Lemon Heads' final genre, realistic fiction, Kyle is digitally costumed to look like Charles and plays a character named Miles Millerson. A holographic father figure pressures Miles to win at all costs, mirroring Charles's home life. Kyle gains deep empathy for his rival. The father figure presents two yellow keys and tells Kyle to hide one to guarantee victory.

Instead, Kyle gives the second key to Haley, and both teams open their final locks simultaneously. Inside each codex is an L-shaped key with embedded microchips. Meanwhile, in the Mythology Room, Charles discovers that the lightning-bolt blaster fires real bolts. His father texts him to "Finish what your mother started. / Show everybody how dangerous Mr. Lemoncello's library can be" (211), referring to Mrs. Chiltington's campaign to shut down the library. Charles begins firing at the walls, threatening real damage.

Kyle proposes using the two L-shaped keys not to break out, but to reprogram Charles's room. He and Haley create a new scenario featuring a kind version of Charles's father who expresses pride in his son. Gabrielle, who wandered into the control room, adds Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greek mythology, to the scene, so Kyle sends in characters from earlier rooms to rescue Charles. Charles must then solve a new rebus puzzle he cannot cheat on. Kyle and Haley help him decode the answer: Call It Courage, a Newbery Medal-winning novel. Sierra identifies the year it won, 1941, and Charles opens his final lock.

With all three teams tied, Mr. Lemoncello announces a tiebreaker. Haley joins the Lemon Heads, and Gabrielle joins Charles. The final puzzle draws from What Else Do You See?, the same game that got Kyle in trouble at school: Contestants must turn a picture of a young princess into an old woman. Gabrielle answers incorrectly. Haley recognizes the optical illusion, tells Kyle to flip the image upside down, and the Lemon Heads win.

Kyle's teammates unanimously agree that Haley should host the new game show. She inserts the winning key, unlocks the front door, and steps out to a roaring crowd of 5,000. Charles, reading one last controlling text from his father, throws his phone into the library fountain and tells his father to go win his own games. Kyle's family cheers from the front row, and Mr. Lemoncello hints at a new adventure at his Gameworks Factory, teasing only that there will be balloons.