If your middle reader is looking for something new to read this summer, you may just need to look a little bit to the past. The Chasing Vermeer series, written by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist, features mysteries, puzzles, adventure and works of art.
The series consists of four books — Chasing Vermeer (2005), The Wright 3 (2007), The Calder Game (2010) and Pieces and Players (2016). The books have been New York Times bestsellers and have been awarded multiple star reviews. But most importantly, kids love them.
Accessible and inviting, they’re all available in paperback, and the latest editions of the first three feature bonus information, interviews and interactive elements.
Learn more about each of the books below.
CHASING VERMEER, by Blue Balliett and Brett Helquist, Scholastic Paperbacks, May 1, 2005, Paperback, $8.99 (ages 9-12)
When a book of unexplainable occurrences brings Petra and Calder together, strange things start to happen: Seemingly unrelated events connect; an eccentric old woman seeks their company; an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal, where no one is spared from suspicion. As Petra and Calder are drawn clue by clue into a mysterious labyrinth, they must draw on their powers of intuition, their problem solving skills, and their knowledge of Vermeer. Can they decipher a crime that has stumped even the FBI?
THE WRIGHT 3, by Blue Balliett and Brett Helquist, Scholastic Paperbacks, June 1, 2007, Paperback, $8.99 (ages 9-12)
Spring semester at the Lab School in Hyde Park finds Petra and Calder drawn into another mystery when unexplainable accidents and ghostly happenings throw a spotlight on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, and it’s up to the two junior sleuths to piece together the clues. Stir in the return of Calder’s friend Tommy (which creates a tense triangle), H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man, 3-D pentominoes, and the hunt for a coded message left behind by Wright, and the kids become tangled in a dangerous web in which life and art intermingle with death, deception, and surprise.
THE CALDER GAME, by Blue Balliett and Brett Helquist, Scholastic Paperbacks, April 1, 2010, Paperback, $8.99 (ages 9-12)
When Calder Pillay travels with his father to a remote village in England, he finds a mix of mazes and mystery . . . including an unexpected Alexander Calder sculpture in the town square. Calder is strangely drawn to the sculpture, while other people have less-than-friendly feelings towards it. Both the boy and the sculpture seem to be out of place . . . and then, on the same night, they disappear! Calder’s friends Petra and Tommy must fly out to help his father find him. But this mystery has more twists and turns than a Calder mobile . . . with more at stake than first meets the eye.
PIECES AND PLAYERS, by Blue Balliett, Scholastic Paperbacks, April 26, 2016, Paperback, $8.99 (ages 9-12)
THE PIECES: Thirteen extremely valuable pieces of art have been stolen from one of the most secretive museums in the world. A Vermeer has vanished. A Manet is missing. And nobody has any idea where they and the other eleven artworks might be . . . or who might have stolen them.
THE PLAYERS: Calder, Petra, and Tommy are no strangers to heists and puzzles. Now they’ve been matched with two new sleuths — Zoomy, a very small boy with very thick glasses, and Early, a girl who treasures words . . . and has a word or two to say about the missing treasure. The kids have been drawn in by the very mysterious Mrs. Sharpe, who may be playing her own kind of game with the clues. And it’s not just Mrs. Sharpe who’s acting suspiciously — there’s a ghost who mingles with the guards in the museum, a cat who acts like a spy, and bystanders in black jackets who keep popping up.
*This post is part of a larger summer reading list, which consists of recommendations but not individual book reviews.
Copyright © 2025 Cracking the Cover. Unless otherwise noted, all books — digital and physical — have been provided by publishers in exchange for honest and unbiased reviews. All thoughts and opinions are those of the reviewer.
