Do you have what it takes to be the new owner of Mr. Lemoncello’s epic gaming empire? Find out in this fantabulous finale to the beloved, New York Times Bestselling Mr. Lemoncello's Library series!

Mr. Lemoncello's ENTIRE game-making empire is up for grabs!

It's time for one last fantabulous challenge with Mr. Lemoncello-the world's most famous gamemaker! This time everything is on the line—literally! Mr. Lemoncello has invited thirteen lucky 13 year-olds—including his biggest fan, Kyle Keeley— to compete in the final games. The winner of these games will become the new owner of Mr. Lemoncello's ENTIRE GAME MAKING EMPIRE!!! But uh-oh--someone is trying to destroy Mr. Lemoncello empire and all it stands for: imagination, games, books . . . knowledge! Can Kyle Keeley stop them and make his dreams come true?

Get ready for a whirlwind adventure that takes us from the lions of the New York Public Library to the Choose Your Own Thrill-Venture Roller Coaster inside the brand-new Lemoncelloland amusement park, filled with codes and clues, adventure and mystery, and surprise cameos from across Chris Grabenstein's many series. So sit back, relax and prepare to have your imagination take flight...you are on your way to Lemoncelloland!

1

Luigi L. Lemoncello was ready to give away everything—his entire empire!

And Kyle Keeley was eager to win it all.

In TV ads, posters, billboards, and social media posts, Mr. Lemoncello asked the same question over and over: Who wants to be a bazillionaire?

Me! was Kyle’s response every time he heard or saw the question. Me, me, me, me, me!

Kyle had just turned thirteen, so he was officially eligible for the big, final game. He’d also already earned his titanium ticket, because after Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics, he became a member of the Lemoncello Library’s board of trustees. The other thirty-two members of that board were all entitled to TTs, too—if they wanted them.

But Kyle knew none of them wanted to win Mr. Lemoncello’s grand prize more than he did. He was obsessed with it, the way he had been obsessed with Mr. Lemoncello’s wacky games his whole life. To be the one in charge of making all that fun was all he could think about—even while he was giving his great-aunt Margaret a tour of Mr. Lemoncello’s library in downtown Alexandriaville, Ohio.

“What are those?” his aunt asked.

“Um, what are what?” said Kyle, because he’d been distracted, happily imagining himself as the new Luigi L. Lemoncello.

“Those floating platforms.”

His great-aunt pointed at the three-story-tall wall of fiction with the umbrella she was, for some strange reason, carrying indoors. She was also wearing two clunky strings of beads the size of gumballs, a sequined cap decorated with plastic flowers, and a monocle.

“Oh,” said Kyle, “those are the hover ladders. They take you up to whatever book you’re looking for. They also have a browse feature, so you can bounce around. That’s what I mostly do. Bounce around.”

Kyle’s great-aunt, Margaret “Maggie” Keeley, used to hang out with the young Luigi Lemoncello when they were both kids. She was also Kyle’s grandfather’s sister. That’s why she was his “great” aunt. (Not just because she sent awesome birthday presents all the way from Paris, which she also did.)

“We never had a library like this,” Aunt Maggie said as they strolled across the Rotunda Reading Room. “We had the amazing Mrs. Tobin at the old library on Market Street. This building was the Gold Leaf Bank. The safe-deposit boxes were downstairs. Chad Chiltington’s father ran the bank. . . .”

Kyle’s ears perked up.

“You guys had a Chiltington?”

His aunt laughed. “Most kids do, I guess. Anyway, this one summer, Chad and his buddy Jimmy Willoughby tried to make life miserable for us. . . .”

Kyle’s great-aunt had never visited Mr. Lemoncello’s library. In fact, she hadn’t been back to Alexandriaville since she left home right after high school. Legend had it that her eccentric uncle Clarence (he wasn’t a Keeley) had given her a “tremendous gift” that paid for her to study fashion in New York City, London, and Paris. Now she was a famous designer known all over the world by one name: Marguerite. And even though she had never returned to her hometown, some of her creations had. She secretly designed most of Mr. Lemoncello’s flamboyant costumes.

“Let’s check out the gift shop,” she said. “I want to see how my new puzzle shirt worked out.”

“Puzzle shirt?”

“Hello?” she said. “It’s a Lemoncello! Even the souvenir T-shirts need to be puzzles.”

2

“Over this way,” said Kyle.

He and his aunt Maggie strode across the Rotunda Reading Room. Kyle couldn’t help but notice all the kids (most of whom looked to be his age) lined up at the desks. They were patiently waiting their turn to use the library’s computers and superfast free Wi-Fi to enter the titanium ticket competition.

“Deadline’s in two weeks,” Kyle heard Nia Cabahug, a friend from school, say.

“Is it going to be a random drawing?” asked the boy behind her in line.

“No,” said Nia. “You have to answer a bunch of questions.”

“What do they ask about?”

“Lots of stuff,” said the kid seated at the desk tapping in answers. “For instance, ‘What’s the best way to maximize cash flow?’ ”

“Open the faucet?” cracked Kyle.

The kids signing up for the competition turned to stare at him.

“You already have a titanium ticket, Kyle,” said Nia.

Kyle shot her a wink. “I know.”

Kyle and his aunt exited the rotunda, crossed through the marble entry hall (with its statue of Mr. Lemoncello spouting water in a gurgling arc), and stepped into the newly opened gift shop.

The room was stuffed with displays of what Kyle called “merch.” Lemon and cello magnets. Mugs featuring Mr. Lemoncello’s mug (his whiskers curled upward when you poured in a hot beverage). There were 3-D postcards, talking bobblehead dolls, hoodies, mountains of Lemoncello board games, and, on a pair of mannequins, two lemon-yellow ringer tees with rainbow-colored letters spelling out:

NS. MFNPODFMMP’T MJCSBSZ

“Clever,” said Kyle after studying the letters for a minute. “You used a shifted alphabet code. Every letter is one letter off.”

“It’s my artistic tribute to Luigi and, really, me too, I guess. All our lives, people have told us that we are ‘a little off.’ ”

Kyle watched a fuzzy fake feather drift away from his aunt’s billowy pink boa. Yes, she was definitely different. But in a fun way!

“So,” said Kyle, ready to solve the T-shirt puzzle, “ ‘N’ equals ‘M,’ and ‘S’ equals ‘R,’ because you shifted up the alphabet one letter. ‘NS. MFNPODFMMP’T MJCSBSZ’ is code for ‘MR. LEMONCELLO’S LIBRARY’!”

“Well done, Kyle.”

“Thanks.”

Something on a shelf near the cash registers caught his aunt’s eye.

“Whoa. This brings back memories.”

She picked up a small wooden box—a five-inch cube with an angled roof and small flapping slot.

“It’s just a model of the sidewalk book return box,” explained Kyle.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Aunt Maggie rotated the purple cube a few times and then, finally, saw something. A hidden button in the far corner of the bottom panel. She poked it. The box’s top popped open.

“It’s a puzzle box!” said Kyle.

“Of course it is. Luigi and his design team would never build an ordinary souvenir when they could create one that was extraordinary. Look at all the tiny treasures hidden inside. A dozen miniature books. Several little-bitty DVDs. Even a dollhouse-sized model of a Clue board game.”

Kyle nodded. But he wasn’t paying attention.

His eyes had drifted up to one of the several screens hanging on the walls of the gift shop. Mr. Lemoncello had just appeared.

“Who wants to be a bazillionaire?” he asked, waving his arms like a used-car dealer. “Because you—yes, you, right here in my gift shop—you could be the lucky winner of everything in my entire empire, including all of this merchandise. Why, you’ll never need to buy another souvenir T-shirt or water bottle again because you’ll already own them all! So, hurry! Don’t delay. Enter today! Win a titanium ticket and you will advance to the final round, where you’ll be playing for all the marbles. Literally. We make a lot of marbles, folks.”

And, thought Kyle with a confident grin, I’m gonna win every single one of ’em!

When I talk to kids about my new book THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I torture them with a tale of electronics deprivation.
     "My main character, Billy Gillfoyle," I say, "is spending the summer in a cabin on a lake. There is no cable, no TV, no DVR, no X-Box, no PlayStation 3. There isn't even an old-fashioned VCR."
     By this point, the kids' gasps become audible.
     "On his first day at the cabin," I continue, "Billy drops his iPhone and it shatters. The nearest Apple store is several hundred miles away."
     Jaws drop. The kids are practically weeping – just like my hero, Billy Gillfoyle. He mopes around the cabin after the demise of his iPhone and ends up in this scene with his mother:

"Billy, what do you think kids did back before video games or TV or even electricity?"
"I don't know. Cried a lot?" He plopped down dramatically on the couch.
"No, Billy. They read books. They made up stories and games. They took nothing and turned it into something."

     And that's what happens to Billy in this book: He learns to start using and trusting his own imagination.
     Characters from books that he reads in Dr. Libris' study start coming to life out on the island in the middle of the lake.   In no time, Hercules, the monster Antaeus, Robin Hood, Maid Marian, The Three Musketeers, D'Artagnan, Pollyanna, and Tom Sawyer are all bumping into each other's stories. It's up to Billy, with the help of his new friend Walter, and a bookcase filled with classic literature, to "imagine" a scenario that will bring all the conflicts to a tidy resolution.
     Yep. In THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, Billy Gillfoyle is learning how to become a writer. He puts his characters into situations and conflicts that will, ultimately, take him to the happy ending he, and everybody else, is looking for.
     When all seems lost, he is on the island with his new friends Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Hercules, despairing that he's not heroic enough to rescue his asthmatic friend Walter from the clutches of the evil Space Lizard (yes, hideous creatures from video games and fairy tales eventually come to life on the island, too.)

"Ho, lads and lassie!" said Robin Hood. "All is not lost! Look you, Sir William – I remember a time when Sir Guy of Gisbourne held me captive in his tower. Did my band of merry followers let a moat or castle walls stand in their way?"
"Nay!" said Marian. "Little John and I didst lead the charge. Oh, how the arrows did fly that day!"
"I'm not Little John," Billy said quietly. "Or you, Maid Marian. I'm not a hero." He looked down at Walter's inhaler. "I'm just a kid who can't even save his own family."
"Nonsense," said Maid Marian. "Each of us can choose who or what we shall be. We write our own stories, Sir William. We write them each and every day."
"And," added Hercules, "if you write it boldly enough, others will write about you, too."

     In my book ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY, I wanted to make young readers excited about reading and doing research. I tried to turn a trip to the library into an incredibly fun scavenger hunt, filled with puzzles and surprises. (In my perpetually twelve-years-old mind, that's what doing research actually is.)
     With THE ISLAND OF DR. LIBRIS, I am hoping to excite young readers about the power and awesomeness of their own imaginations. I want them to take nothing and turn it into something. To take two old ideas, toss them together, and create something new.
     And, when they write their own stories, maybe some of them will decide they want to become authors, writing stories for the rest of us, too!