Balliett, Blue: Chasing Vermeer
Eleven-year-olds Calder Pilsay and Petra Andalee live three houses away from each other on a narrow street in Chicago's Hyde Park area. They are both unusually intelligent, Petra the sort of quirkily interesting kid whom others in her class consequently label as "weird," while Calder excels at patterning. He fidgets incessantly with the set of pentominoes he keeps with him at all times, fitting the Tetris-like shapes together to form rectangles of varying sizes. Both Calder and Petra, too, are unusually receptive to the idea that is a theme of this book, that apparent coincidences are not always coincidental. When the coincidences and various unexplained phenomena in their own lives begin piling up--many of them connected with the painter Vermeer--Calder and Petra come to believe that a particular Vermeer painting will be stolen. When it is, they believe themselves peculiarly suited to finding it.
Though its plot is a disappointment, and it never packs any true suspense, Chasing Vermeer has much to recommend it: likeable characters, some nice writing, Brett Helquist's drawings, and the use of codes in the book, based on Calder's pentominoes. The story may also get kids thinking more about art, as the author surely intended. The inclusion of reprints of two of Vermeer's paintings is a nice touch.
I read the book in school and I really enjoyed the secret codes we had to find out to go onto the next chapter...
Posted by: Katherine Smithfield | April 05, 2007 at 11:49 AM
You might like Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game too, then.
Posted by: Debra Hamel | April 06, 2007 at 09:32 AM
My girl loves this book its an amazing book I read it to her and I personally think its amazing
Posted by: Natalie | March 07, 2011 at 09:59 AM
too many coincidences
Posted by: sabrina | May 18, 2014 at 03:12 PM