Blue Balliett
Encyclopedia
Blue Balliett is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author, best known for her award-winning novel for children, Chasing Vermeer
Chasing Vermeer
Chasing Vermeer is a 2004 children's art mystery novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist. Set in Hyde Park, Chicago near the University of Chicago, the novel follows two children, Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee...

.

Chasing Vermeer, released by Scholastic Press
Scholastic Press
Scholastic is a global book publishing company known for publishing educational materials for schools, teachers, and parents, and selling and distributing them by mail order and via book clubs and book fairs. It also has the exclusive United States' publishing rights to the Harry Potter book...

 in 2004, is her best known and most highly praised book. Illustrated by Brett Helquist
Brett Helquist
Brett L. Helquist is an American illustrator best known for his work in the children's books A Series of Unfortunate Events. As such, his illustrations for that series have appeared in multiple media, including the books, the audiobook covers, the calendars, and so on.- Background :According to...

, it concerns the fictitious theft of a painting by 17th-century Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 artist Johannes Vermeer
Johannes Vermeer
Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in exquisite, domestic interior scenes of middle class life. Vermeer was a moderately successful provincial genre painter in his lifetime...

. The book was a bestseller and won a number of accolades and awards, including the 2005 Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 in the Best Juvenile category; it was also optioned by Warner Brothers for a film version.

A sequel, The Wright 3
The Wright 3
The Wright 3 is a 2006 children's mystery novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist. It was released in Spring 2006 and is the sequel to the children's novel Chasing Vermeer. It chronicles how Calder, Petra, and Tommy strive to save the Robie House in their neighborhood, Hyde...

, was released in April, 2006, and a third, The Calder Game
The Calder Game
The Calder Game is a children's novel written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist, published in 2008. It is the sequel to The Wright 3...

, was published two years later, in April 2008. Her latest book, The Danger Box, was published in August 2010. Balliett has also published two books of Nantucket ghost stories.

Balliett lived near Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

's Robie House
Robie House
The Frederick C. Robie House is a U.S. National Historic Landmark in the Chicago, Illinois neighborhood of Hyde Park at 5757 S. Woodlawn Avenue on the South Side. It was designed and built between 1908 and 1910 by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and is renowned as the greatest example of his Prairie...

 in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

's Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...

 for a period of time and was inspired to write her second book in the Chasing Vermeer series, The Wright 3.

External links

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