Blue Balliett (Author of Chasing Vermeer)

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Blue Balliett

Born

in New York City , The United States

January 01, 1955

Website

Twitter

Genre

Children's Books

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I was born in New York City and grew up playing in Central Park, getting my share of scraped knees, and riding many public buses and subways. By the time I was a teenager, I sometimes stopped at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Frick Museum after school, just to wander and look and think. The Met has five Vermeer paintings and the Frick three, so Vermeer and I have been friends for many years.
After studying art history in college, I moved to Nantucket Island, in Massachusetts, in order to write. I surprised myself by writing two books of ghost stories, stories collected by interviewing people. My husband and I met and were married on Nantucket, lived there year-round for another 10 years, and had our two children there.
When our kids st I was born in New York City and grew up playing in Central Park, getting my share of scraped knees, and riding many public buses and subways. By the time I was a teenager, I sometimes stopped at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Frick Museum after school, just to wander and look and think. The Met has five Vermeer paintings and the Frick three, so Vermeer and I have been friends for many years.
After studying art history in college, I moved to Nantucket Island, in Massachusetts, in order to write. I surprised myself by writing two books of ghost stories, stories collected by interviewing people. My husband and I met and were married on Nantucket, lived there year-round for another 10 years, and had our two children there.
When our kids started school, we moved to Chicago. I began teaching 3rd grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. One year my class and I decided to figure out what art was about. We asked many questions, visited many museums in the city, and set off a number of alarms 鈥� by mistake, of course.
In writing Chasing Vermeer, I wanted to explore the ways kids perceive connections between supposedly unrelated events and situations, connections that grown-ups often miss. Given the opportunity, kids can ask questions that help them to think their way through tough problems that adults haven鈥檛 been able to figure out 鈥� problems like the theft of a Vermeer painting!
In The Wright 3, I play with questions about architecture as art, the preservation of old buildings, and Frank Lloyd Wright鈥檚 legacy. I wanted to continue exploring controversial ideas within the three-dimensional art world. We need kids to develop into powerful, out-of-the-box thinkers, now more than ever. I believe in making trouble 鈥� of the right kind.
My third book, The Calder Game, takes place in a small community in England, a 1,000-year-old town that I visited while on a book tour. I had a wonderful time writing this book. I had to do lots of eavesdropping, poking around, tiptoeing through graveyards, and climbing walls, and then there was all the Cadbury chocolate I had to eat. Alexander Calder's work is art for any age. I first saw his sculpture when I was 9 years old, in a show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. It was art but it was magic, and it left me hungry for more. This, I'm sure, was the beginning of my belief that art is about adventure.
Blue Balliett grew up in New York City and attended Brown University. She and her family now live in Chicago, within walking distance of Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House. Balliett's books have now appeared in 34 languages. Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired the film rights to Chasing Vermeer. ...more

16 posts
Blue Balliett's Blog

Blue Balliett isn't a 欧宝娱乐 Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Juicy Secrets

In celebration of the release of my latest novel, Out of the Wild Night, I was interviewed by my amazing
editor, David Levithan. David convinced me to share a few juicy secrets about writing, ghosts and
Nantucket 鈥� things I鈥檝e certainly never talked about before. Here goes:

David Levithan: Hello, Blue! I鈥檓 very thrilled to be talking to you today about your new novel, Out of the
Wild Night. It鈥檚 been Read more of this blog post »

2 likes · Like • 1 comment • flag

Published on March 30, 2018 09:41

View all 16 posts »

Combine Editions
Blue Balliett鈥檚 books

Average rating: 3.76 · 55,574 ratings · 5,043 reviews · 33 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Chasing Vermeer (Chasing Vermeer, #1) 3.73 avg rating — 31,074 ratings — published 2004 — 85 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wright 3 (Chasing Vermeer, #2) by Blue Balliett, Brett Helquist (Illustrator) 3.91 avg rating — 9,974 ratings — published 2006 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Calder Game (Chasing Vermeer, #3) by Blue Balliett, Brett Helquist (Illustrator) 3.87 avg rating — 6,469 ratings — published 2008 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hold Fast 3.84 avg rating — 4,334 ratings — published 2013 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Danger Box 3.55 avg rating — 2,100 ratings — published 2010 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pieces and Players (Chasing Vermeer, #4) 3.31 avg rating — 1,090 ratings — published 2015 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Out of the Wild Night 3.04 avg rating — 503 ratings — published 2018 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ghosts of Nantucket: 23 True Accounts 3.75 avg rating — 171 ratings — published 1990 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blue Balliett Titles by Blue Balliett, Brett Helquist (Illustrations) 3.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2009 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Codul Wright 3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Blue Balliett…

Series by Blue Balliett

Chasing Vermeer (4 books)
by

Blue Balliett

3.77 avg rating — 48,607 ratings

Quotes by Blue Balliett (?)

“The greatest art belongs to the world. Do not be intimidated by the experts. Trust your instincts. Do not be afraid to go against what you were taught, or what you were told to see or believe. Every person, every set of eyes, has the right to the truth.”
― Blue Balliett, Chasing Vermeer

tags: art, truth

69 likes

“What was a foreigner, anyway? Is the place you're born the only place you really belong? At what point do you stop being from "away" and start being from "here"?”
― Blue Balliett, The Calder Game

38 likes

“Passing time isn't a steady thing. People try to measure it, but some days seem to have years packed into them, and others pass in the blink of an eye. Some days matter, and others don't.”
― Blue Balliett, The Calder Game

25 likes

See all Blue Balliett's quotes »

Polls

What book should we read in May?

You may write in titles, provided the book is a 2014 Newbery contender and already published.

The Center of Everything by Linda Urban

22 votes 26.2%

Hold Fast by Blue Balliett

21 votes 25.0%

A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

18 votes 21.4%

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

12 votes 14.3%

The Center of Everything

3 votes 3.6%

A Tangle of Knots (write-in)

2 votes 2.4%

Center of Everything (write-in)

2 votes 2.4%

Hold Fast

2 votes 2.4%

Center of everything (write-in)

1 vote 1.2%

maggot moon (because I would probably not read it otherwise!) (write-in)

1 vote 1.2%

84 total votes

1 comment

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Blue Balliett鈥檚 Followers (520)

Add NewVideos

Blue Balliett

16 postsBlue Balliett's Blog

Juicy Secrets

Combine EditionsBlue Balliett鈥檚 books

Series by Blue Balliett

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

16 posts
Blue Balliett's Blog

Combine Editions
Blue Balliett鈥檚 books