The Calder Game

This third volume following the bestselling Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3 continues the adventures of three sixth-graders--Calder, Petra and Tommy--in solving another art mystery.When Calder Pillay travels with his father to a remote village in England, he encounters both mazes and mystery -- including an unexpected Alexander Calder sculpture (Minotaur) in the town square. Both the boy (who was named after the artist) and the sculpture disappear on the same night!Petra and Tommy fly to England to help Calder's father find him. This mystery twists and turns like a Calder mobile in high wind. Who is the mysterious girl with the camera? Who is the injured man found in the woods? Is there a secret room behind the waterfalls? What is the meaning of the puzzling graffiti left in place of the missing sculpture? Is there an even more twisted game afoot?Blue Balliett captures the personalities and minds of each character with deft strokes and draws the atmosphere for each scene with masterful nuances. It feels authentic because the author actually visited all the places she describes -- the 1000-year-old village, the graveyards and mazes, the palaces and gardens, the waterfalls and bridges. She has a fine ear for the subtleties of accents and characters' turns of phrase. This is a book to savor.In this volume, Blue Balliett focuses on the art of Alexander Calder, whose mobiles (hanging) and stabiles (floor-based) revolutionized modern art and gave it a fourth dimension, motion through time. The ever-changing perspective that never looks the same twice leads us to reflect on change in general...now you see it, now you don't...and how each experience changes us as well, moment by moment.At one point in the story, the three young friends get separated, each trying to find the next clue and keeping up their courage in scary situations. Their ordeals lead them to a stronger bond between them, a greater appreciation of each other's differences. For this reader it was good to have them be rid of their previous animosities.Back home in Chicago, the kids also see a welcome change in their classroom, where their previously restrictive teacher has also had a happy transformation through the inspiring power of Alexander Calder's art. Blue Balliett's enlightened teaching philosophy shines through the pages here.Thoughtful readers will especially enjoy the intricate mix and balance between art lore, teaching inspirations, literature and philosophy, art as puzzle, puzzles as ideas, ideas as art. Rather like a mind mobile, wouldn't you say?There is a secondary puzzle to decode, hidden in Brett Helquist's delightful illustrations, using Alexander Calder icons as an alphabet.

What can I say about Blue Balliett? I loved Chasing Vermeer. I enjoyed how she fused art with mystery and had fun with a concept totally new to young readers. With The Wright 3, I thought she terribly overplayed her hand. The book was all over the place and utterly confusing. Still I could tell, the voice, the potential was there and I believed that one day Balliett would knock our socks off. I hoped that this time around she'd abandon Petra, Calder, and the gang and venture into a new mystery, but no such luck. So how does her third novel, The Calder Game, fare?Calder, Petra, and Tommy are still struggling with the idea of being a trio. Petra and Tommy can't get along because each one wants Calder all to themselves, which puts Calder in an awkward position. So when his father heads to England for a conference, Calder escapes the tension by traveling along. He's excited, upon arriving, to discover that the village of Woodstock where they'll be staying, harbors an original Alexander Calder (the artist the boy was named after) sculpture, named The Minotaur. Later, when the sculpture is suddenly stolen and Calder disappears shortly afterwards, Petra and Tommy journey with Mrs. Sharpe to England to help Calder's father find their friend.When comparing to Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3, I would probably rank this one somewhere in between. It's definitely a major step in the right direction after The Wright 3. It's biggest downfall however, is it's utterly slow and somewhat boring beginning. Chapter One of this book is a very short, one page description of an eerie setting and a missing boy. We, the reader, know this boy is Calder and are supposed to feel excited about reading on and discovering why he's gone missing. I love hooks like this, when they're done well. The problem with this hook? I feel it's actually more of a cop-out, especially after reading what follows.I got the feeling while reading this, that Balliett wrote the first one-third of her novel before she realized that she hadn't even gotten to her problem, thus the plot of her story, the stolen sculpture and the missing boy. It's then that she probably decided to go back and sprinkle these "mysterious" flashbacks in the beginning, to hold her reader's attention as a promise that she was in fact, getting to her point. I wasn't fooled. Balliett seems to do a lot of incoherent rambling here and makes no real attempt at putting together the pieces laid before her, or moving her story along. She's a better author than this and the beginning one-third of this particular story comes off sloppy, lazy, and hurried. We begin in the past, we're rushed to the future, only to be brought back in time yet again. It's confusing. The beginning of this book reads an awfully lot like The Wright 3 and I found myself putting it down quite often, not wanting to return to it.But I'm glad I did. Once the story finally gets going, it's rather good. In The Wright 3, I felt sorry for the characters, who seemed to desperately want to do some real detective work, but that Balliett didn't supply them with any. Her new book, actually has a story to tell, without random nonsense floating throughout it. Finally, in The Calder Game, Balliett does away with Petra's "visions", Calder's pentominoes (well, not entirely), and even allows Calder's father to come to the front of the stage and become quite the information-seeker. Gone are the friendly confines of Chicago's Hyde Park and gone is the company of the all-to-lovely Ms. Hussey (the three's new teacher, Ms. Button, is incredibly cranky). I think these slight changes give this series a well needed shot to the arm. Petra and Tommy's realization that they are alone together, in another country, and both grieving the loss of Calder, was well-written, albeit inevitable. It'll be interesting to see where Balliett takes us next, considering that the three children are over their differences now.Where The Wright 3, and even Chasing Vermeer to a certain extent, dangled way too many unnecessary story pieces in front of us, some that never did fit in anywhere, The Calder Game does a fine job of putting everything together without wasting any information. My only complaint about the ending is Balliett's need to sit us down and explain carefully HOW each and every puzzle piece fit. The last three or four chapters are literally, explanations. If you're going to do away with the unnecessary information, then trust your reader to put together some of the rest, on their own.These books have a nice look and feel. Brett Helquist's illustrations are creative and the jacket covers are colorful and engaging. I just don't find myself enjoying what's inside them as much as I want to. Blue Balliett has interesting ideas, and I love how she centers each story around a deserving artist. I feel like they're not executed as well as they could be. The Calder Game was pretty good though, so I still have faith that eventually she will put all her talent together and produce something far beyond what Chasing Vermeer even was. I still wish she'd give these characters a break and dabble in something different, but I don't see it coming. So until then, it's her potential that will probably lure me back to a fourth book to see what this trio has in store for us.

I have two copies and as a grandma I read a chapter at bedtime and my grandson follows along in his book. Great for the third or fourth grade reader, it's a little challenging and that's what I'm reading, but it mentions real places and real artwork That we can Google and look at later

Good book

This was purchased as a gift

My kids and I read every night before bed time and enjoy a good mystery. Unfortunately, this story could not keep our interest....not mine and not my kids. We gave up on it somewhere after the kid went to England. It was also unrealistic...what responsible parent would allow their 11 year old to run around a foreign country unaccompanied? (For that matter in the states?) Sorry, Blue...we just couldn't hang in there.

kids book

I purchased this for my 12-year old. She was a big fan of Balliet's previous books "Chasing Vermeer," and "The Wright Three." This book didn't quite meet her expectations because, in her words, "the three kids in the story didn't have that much to do with solving the mystery at the heart of the story." She did like the descriptions of England and the settings portrayed in the the story. She adds that she found the discussion of Calder's artwork, "cool."

Really interesting, just like Blue Balliett's other books