Author: Blue Balliett
Lexile Score: 770
Genre: mystery fiction
Maturity level: 3rd grade, unfortunately the allusion to art and math concepts need lots of explaining at the 3rd grade level. I'm putting it on the 5th grade list.
Pages: 260 if you include all maps and forwards and postscripts, which you should. Chapters: 24 Average Chapter Length: 10 pages
Theme: math, art, friendship
Project ideas: I've always got out the pentominoes sets during the reading of this book. I think that's fairly obvious. I've also asked the art teacher to do a mini-unit on Vermeer, which she has always been more than happy to do! Last year I purchased the complete works of Charles Fort as well, and had students read some selections from it. I think Ms. Balliett does a fine job of illuminating Fort's work within the story, but reading the original text can be a motivator.
First Line: On a warm October night in Chicago, three deliveries were made in the same neighborhood.
Main Character: Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee
Review in 25 words or less: Did not hold up to a second reading. Balliett is trying a little too hard.
Grade: B-
On paper (which I guess is a phrase that doesn't work quite as well in regard to books), the concept of this book thrills me! Geometric puzzles, art history clues, and natural phenomenons? I love it all! And even when I first read this book, I was totally gripped by the story and all the layers of mystery and curiosity. It was in my second reading that this house of cards flattened out on me.
This book frustrated me much in the same way that Harry Potter has. The author just takes too many liberties to allow the reader to feel part of the story. It feels unfair when an author gets to have a surprise hidden panel in the wall at the end of the story. I don't know if this is so much true for all genres. A mystery, however, should be tight. It needs to feel like a completed puzzle at the end - either leaving you feeling satisfied that you called it right, or amazed at how well it all came together. When it feels like a jumble that nobody could have pieced together except the author (and even appears that the author took pains to make it more complicated than necessary) it just doesn't work. In some cases of literature (and art!), when you think "I could have made that," it is a compliment on how easy the creator made it look. In the case of Chasing Vermeer, and knowing full well my limitations as a writer, thinking "I could have written that" is not a good thing.
For a book club book, I think this will still be a delight to young readers. If the club is given all the extra ingredients to completely lose themselves in a world of mathematical and artistic mystery, fall in love with Chasing Vermeer. I have only read this book aloud with students. To independently read it as a book club, students would probably need to be older and have strategies for figuring out the references the book makes.
* be happy together is good enough. I am not asking for things that I could never get.
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