Pieces and Players

January 19, 2015
Calder, Petra, and Tommy from Chasing Vermeer and its sequels join forces with Zoomy from The Danger Box and Early from Hold Fast to investigate the “biggest art robbery ever to happen in the United States”: the heist of 13 paintings and sculptures from a small Chicago museum. Though the story’s museum is fictional, Balliett borrows the outline of a real crime—the 1990 theft of artwork worth $500 million from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—for her plot. As in her previous mysteries, chance and coincidence drive the action, and the narrative is salted with repeated motifs and literary allusions. The eighth-grade sleuths, summoned to help because a museum trustee believes they will do detective work that the adult investigators are incapable of doing, use prime numbers, Mother Goose rhymes, and messages in dreams and from a ghost to crack the case. (The FBI may want to invest in its own Ouija board.) Fans of Balliett’s previous work will find and enjoy the same meld of puzzling mystery and art history in this adventure. Ages 8–12. Agent: Doe Coover, Doe Coover Agency.

Just as five 13-year-olds become more familiar with each other over the course of Balliet's latest art mystery, so too does Bahni Turpin become more comfortable in her role as narrator. Her voice gradually loses a formal and slightly distant tone and moves towards a warmer one with convincing and genuine animation as her characters move from awkward and judgmental of each other to convivial and accepting. The five young teens, along with precise Mrs. Sharpe and breezy Ms. Hussey, pursue the disappearance of 13 pieces of art from a Chicago museum. In an author's note, Balliett herself narrates the story's connection to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery 25 years ago. A.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

July 1, 2015

Gr 3-7-Blue Balliett pulls together all the main characters from previous series entries to solve the mystery of 13 pieces of art gone missing from the Farmer Museum in Chicago. Petra, Calder, Tommy, Zoomy, and Early are 13 now, and the onset of puberty is on their minds. However, when an elderly museum board member asks for their help in solving the mystery, the five children eagerly agree. The kids see patterns, clues, and the importance of prime numbers where others merely see coincidences. The quirkiness and creative reasoning skills of the characters combined with the personal connection each child develops with the missing art make this audiobook distinctive. Bahni Turpin does a nice job narrating, giving each child a distinctive voice. The author's note at the end of the book, read by Balliett, offers additional insights. VERDICT Give this to students who are fans of the previous books or who crave puzzles.-Julie Paladino, East Chapel Hill High School, NC

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

samfarkle - we talk about this book in class it look very good. i love art heist books.i have a theory about this story about the author.she is weird save the best for last i want to say