By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Noah McClintock walked into the Great Art Heist Escape Room and could hardly contain his excitement to get started.
The seven-, almost eight-year-old, immediately checked the setup of pedestals, lock boxes and other objects in the Wood County District Public Library’s escape room last week. His young brain was in full gear, ready to figure out the number of clues he and his dad Alex would have to work through to solve the case.
The Great Art Heist Escape Room, the creation of Children’s Librarian Cassie Greenlee, was Noah’s second experience at solving an escape room puzzle.
He participated in the “Escape the Enchanted Library” room that coincided with children’s author Chris Grabenstein’s visit in April.
At the time, Noah became enamored with being a miniature gumshoe to figure out the room puzzles. He vowed to put on his detective hat any time the library offered an escape room experience.
For the Great Art Heist, Inspector Chase (aka Greenlee’s husband via video) relayed the situation:
“Last night, the Florence Museum of Art became the latest in a long string of museums, galleries, and private collections that lay prey to a ring of art thieves. … They keep slipping through our fingers. Worse, they’ve started to mock us. No longer content with just stealing priceless art, they’re now leaving behind clues and puzzles, wasting our time, and taunting us in the process.”
The thieves reportedly took five pieces of art from the displays, then left five locked boxes behind. The sleuths were tasked with determining which art pieces, if any, were stolen and by whom.
Noah and his dad worked as a team: Noah read the clues and together they talked through what the clues meant and what to do next. Step by step, clue by clue, and lock box by lock box, they determined the art thief was nicknamed “Siilver Sceptre” and it appeared nothing was stolen anything.
There were art pieces in each of the five lock boxes. When Noan reported to Inspector Chase that Silver Spectre was the culprit but nothing was stolen, the puzzle took an interesting twist.
According to the inspector, “We thought everything was accounted for last time too. And it turns out one of them had been replaced with a counterfeit. So you’re just going to have to authenticate all of the pieces.”
A second, nearby room was set up with clues to figure out which art items were real, and which were fake, continuing the puzzle to figure out the identity of the Silver Sceptre. With a little help from Cassie, the McClintock team solved the case within the 30-minute time allotment.
The second team of four that day was a group of teens and a mom, who enjoy puzzles and reading, making the library’s escape room a perfect outing.
Andrea Corney, Addison Corney, Ella Schnee, Lily Toth, Mary Toth and Blake Stanton came into the space with a different approach than the McClintocks.
As soon as they heard the assignment, they fanned out to look for clues to help them solve the puzzle. Their method took them in two different directions, Cassie told them. They joined forces, figured out the culprit before learning about the surprise addition needed to find the replica artwork and then the identity of the thief.
The authentication went quickly and their ability to crack the code of the rubric, even faster. After they reported the identity to the inspector in time for his team to apprehend the thief, they learned they had “escaped the room” in the fastest time: with 10 minutes and 23 seconds remaining.
After the success of the first escape room last summer, “Find the Missing Librarian,” Greenlee got the OK from her boss, Youth Services Coordinator Maria Simon, to OK to do the July escape room. With the summer reading program theme of “Color Your World,” Greenlee came up with the Great Art Heist for the third escape room theme.
She and her husband, Chase, discovered and fell in love with escape rooms during a vacation in 2018. She first pitched the idea of an escape room in the Children’s Place in 2020. COVID wrecked that plan.
The idea was re-envisioned in 2024 and became an instant hit with young patrons and teens. Cassie scheduled times for 22 teams to visit the escape room.
She learned she had to be flexible with each group, adjusting clues and offering suggestions based on the members’ ages and how they approach the challenges.
“The smaller groups tend to solve the puzzles in a different order than larger groups, who are more likely to spread out and search everything,” she said.
She also simplified some aspects of the process for younger participants because “the capabilities of a seven-year-old can be quite different from high school students.”
Originally, she designed the game for youths 11 years old and up to be done with just a little bit of help from her or other adults. With the art heist theme, there have been more kids in the 8- to 10-year-old range than she was expecting.
As she looks ahead, she will consider creating a simple version and a more complicated version to accommodate the different age ranges.
Designing the games has been as much fun for her as the games are for the participants.
She and her husband had visited an art heist escape room in Columbus to get some ideas. “It’s completely different, but it got us to thinking about bringing the theme to the library,” she said. “I’ve had to think on the fly,” adding that her teen volunteers are the testers. She used their feedback to tweak some aspects of the puzzle.
“I really try to be flexible to get people over the finish line,” she said. “It’s more fun if you win.”
Alex Five in conquer. Interesting. Sounds like something. There’s actually six. There are, you’re right. Let’s start by reading some of the signs here. Start reading for some clues. Do you think he’s seeing anything? I see there are some keys up there. Key.
The teen group worked well together and demonstrated strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills. They knew what to do with the locks, looking for colors or numbers to open the locks.
They admitted their goal was to get out of the room before the time was up. Figuring out some of the clues, like “the year it began,” almost tripped them up, Addison said.
Their competitive spirit keeps them going. Sisters Addison and Andrea solved all three of the library’s escape rooms. “I liked this one because it had more parts to it and was more complicated,” Addison said. “I thought once we had figured out the thief that we were done, but then we had to do the authentication.”
My daughter and I love doing brain puzzles and challenging puzzles at home,” Mary Toth said. “The escape room is like a big puzzle, where you are working your mind.”
The team agreed, the escape room was fun and “We recommend it.”
Because people seem to be responding well to the experience, don’t be surprised if they pop up more often, Cassie said, hoping that becomes reality. Visiting the escape room promotes lateral and critical thinking, which are important skills for everyone.
“This really does showcase the library, and that we can be about more than just books,” she said. “Books are important, of course, but being a community hub is the biggest service that we provide.”
For the people who don’t read books and question why a library is needed, Cassie said, if nothing else, “You can come play the escape room, and you can do it for free. This fits in with the mission to provide unique experiences.”
