About the Author

Blue Balliett is the author of several bestselling, acclaimed mystery novels, including Hold Fast, Chasing Vermeer (a Book Sense Book of the Year and an Edgar Award winner), The Wright 3, The Calder Game, and The Danger Box. She writes in the laundry room of her home in Chicago, Illinois, and you can find her online at blueballiettbooks.com.
Brett Helquist was born in Ganado, Arizona, and grew up in Orem, Utah. He entered Brigham Young University as an engineering major, but soon realized this was not the right choice for him. Having decided to take time off from college, he headed to Taiwan where he stumbled into a job illustrating English textbooks, which he enjoyed. There, a friend introduced him to an illustration student, also from Brigham Young University. This introduction inspired Brett to eventually switch majors. After spending a year in Taiwan, he went back to BYU and transferred to the illustration department. In 1993 he received a fine arts degree in illustration.

Reviews

Gr 5-8-Those precocious art sleuths Calder, Petra, and Tommy are back, and this mystery is every bit as intricate, engaging, and delightful as Chasing Vermeer (2004) and The Wright 3 (2006, both Scholastic). The three seventh graders go with their class to an exhibit of Alexander Calder's mobiles at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Soon after, Calder and his father travel to a remote village in England that has an anonymously donated Calder sculpture, the Minotaur, and a maze at Blenheim Park. Both the boy and the sculpture disappear on the same night. Balliett's love of words and her ability to tuck hidden, subtle clues into her story are evident throughout. Petra and Tommy fly to England to help Calder's dad and the police find their friend. The kids see mobiles everywhere: in the leaves, flying crows, paper trash. Indeed, the whole story is structured as a mobile, with plot and characters twisting and turning, moving and dancing around each other. The young sleuths are able to take what seems to be chance and coincidence and apply their own conclusions to the puzzle wrapped inside this mystery. Balliett's wonderful writing is full of foreshadowing, literary allusions, wordplay, and figurative language. Calder's signature yellow pentominoes play an important role, and the kids create a new code. Helquist's detailed illustrations enhance this multilayered story. Fans of the author's previous novels are in for a treat in this latest adventure.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Praise for The Calder Game "Balliett doesn 't shirk from putting her characters in danger, but what 's fascinating is how she weaves in the kids ' attraction to puzzles, words, and found objects as she moves them through literal and figurative mazes. Balliett again offers readers new ways to think." -- Booklist, starred review"Acclaimed for her sophisticated juggling of art concepts, mystery, philosophy and storytelling, Balliett outdoes herself with this ambitious novel .... Motivated readers will treasure this provocative title." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

Praise for The Calder Game"Balliett doesn 't shirk from putting her characters in danger, but what 's fascinating is how she weaves in the kids ' attraction to puzzles, words, and found objects as she moves them through literal and figurative mazes. Balliett again offers readers new ways to think." -- Booklist, starred review"Acclaimed for her sophisticated juggling of art concepts, mystery, philosophy and storytelling, Balliett outdoes herself with this ambitious novel .... Motivated readers will treasure this provocative title." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review