After three people receive mysterious letters and a famous painting is stolen, sixth-graders Calder and Petra work together to solve the crime and save the painting.

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet is aimed to younger readers, but don’t let the young characters and big print fool you. It’s a fun puzzle to solve, especially if you’re interested in mysteries, codes, and art. If your younger brother or sister leaves it lying around, sneak it away for a few hours.

The illustrations were done by Brett Helquist, who also does the illustrations for the Lemony Snicket books.

Scholastic page about Chasing Vermeer
A review from Kidsreads.com
Chasing Vermeer to become a movie (warning, if you’re on a slow connection or not using Firefox, it’s an about.com page= lots of popups!)
A gifted education teacher’s page of games based on Chasing Vermeer. (This one’s targeted more to teachers.)
See who else is reading this on All Consuming

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