Blue Ballietta's debut novel, "Chasing Vermeer" has been called a " 'Da Vinci Code' for tweens" and with good reason.
"Chasing Vermeer" isn't your typical whodunit about an art heist. True, a famous painting, "A Lady Writing," by the 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer is stolen, and sixth-graders Calder Pillay and Petra Andalee get to play detective, figuring out where the Vermeer is while the befuddled adults around them don't even know where to start looking. But there's a secret at the heart of this art theft: Vermeer didn't actually paint all the paintings that are attributed to him. Some of them are fakes, but the art community is too craven and money-minded to bring the truth to light, alleges the thief in a letter published in The Chicago Tribune.