Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Both Mr. Lemoncello’s choice to allow a group of 12 12-year-olds to preview the library and Dr. Zinchenko’s elaborate escape game are built on the theme of “The Dichotomy of Old and New.” Mr. Lemoncello is an eccentric older gentleman with a love of the old-fashioned public library with its helpful librarian and quiet spaces good for reading, thinking, and being alone. He wants children in his hometown to experience the same love and appreciation for the traditional public library that he had in his childhood. His choice to fund the new public library is in defiance to those responsible for the loss of Alexandriaville’s former one: “Back then, many said the Internet had rendered the ‘old-fashioned’ library obsolete, that a new parking garage would attract shoppers” (33). Mr. Lemoncello includes plenty of old books and materials in the new library; one of the escape game books, How to Use Your Library, still has the old-fashioned paper card and glued-in card pocket for signing out the book. Older research materials are available in the Stacks in the basement, and he devotes an entire special collection to his nostalgic Lemoncello-abilia Room, which includes a museum-style set-up of his childhood bedroom.