Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Chasing Vermeer is not your typical mystery.  To love this book, you need to love quirky characters and schools that are not quite typical.  Luckily, I am a fan of both of these things.  Another element about this book that I found particularly nice was that it was a  mystery that ... actually requires detective work! In a lot of middle grade and young adult mysteries I have read lately, there is a lot of luck involved, a lot of stumbling across clues, a lot of providential happenstance.  I felt that in Chasing Vermeer Balliett did an excellent job of creating characters who were smart and used their brains to seek out answers.  Sure, there is going to be a little bit of happenstance helping every mystery along, but this one was a little more reminiscence of true detective mysteries like Holmes and Poirot.  

Without giving anything away, Petra and Calder are two students at a school on a university campus.  Their teacher is very in to letting them explore their own interests and designing their own learning experiences.  When a famous Vermeer painting not only goes missing, but is in danger, Petra and Calder dive into the mystery with enthusiasm and a little bit of adventure.  

I think that this book will appear to a lot of different types of readers.  The mystery crowd, obviously, will be shoe-ins for enjoying this title.  Calder's math and logic focused perspective could draw in readers who would normally rather solve a sudoku puzzle than pick up a book.  Additionally, it is a rare book that can equally capture the interests of the mathletes and artists amongst middle school readers - but the art history elements of this story definitely appealed to me and made me want to go out and learn a little more about Vermeer.

Excellent job all around, Balliett.  I'm looking forward to reading The Wright Three next.

Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic

Now that I have read Zlata's Diary, I am surprised that I had not read, or even heard of it, sooner.  I am glad to have finally discovered it, though.  I picked it up after reading about it in The Freedom Writer's Diaries and hearing what an impact it had made in the lives of those students.  (They even got to meet Zlata!)  I can see why.

Zlata's Diary tells her story in a voice that is raw and honest as well as relate-able and engaging.  Zlata is eleven when she starts writing to Mimmy, her diary.  The war in Bosnia had not yet been loosed in Zlata's hometown of Sarajevo when she began writing in 1991.  She is a typical fifth grader worrying about her grades and looking forward to weekend trips to the mountain.  Within a few short months of her first entry, however, war has arrived in Sarajevo.  Neither Zlata nor her beloved city will be the same again.  The reader experiences the war through Zlata's eyes for the next two years until she is a thirteen year old girl, still living in war, missing her childhood, and wise beyond her years.  I think Zlata explains the project best when she writes to Mimmy that, "I wrote to you about the war, about myself and Sarajevo in the war, and the world wants to know about it.  I wrote what I felt, saw and heard, and now people outside of Sarajevo are going to know it." (From the entry marked Thursday, October 14, 1993). 

I appreciated the unique perspective Zlata's Diary offered on the Yugoslav Wars.  The "kids" (read politicians)  to a backseat to the human experience of war as felt and observed by a normal teenage girl in a very abnormal situation.  You don't have to know the politics of 1990s Bosnia to understand Zlata's experiences.  You don't have to understand the particulars of the war to understand her when she says "Of course, I'm 'young,' and politics are conducted by 'grown-ups.'  But I thing we 'young' would do it better.  We certainly wouldn't have chosen war." (From the entry marked Thursday, November 19, 1992).  She doesn't dwell on the ins and outs of the conflict, but questions its existence to begin with. 

Zlata's Diary is not a "girl book" or "boy book."  It is non-fiction with a narrative, story-telling style.  It is very, very real, even for those of us untouched by war.  I can't recommend it enough.

Interested in hearing more about Zlata, beyond just reading her diary?

Check out this site to read a recent interview with Zlata.

She also has a new book that I am interested in reading:  Stolen Voices.

Heartbeat by Sharon Creech

I do not really like running, but I do like the idea of running.  I am not a very good runner, but I can certainly understand the way that Annie feels about it.  She loves running.  This is different from liking something.  Liking is for things like weekends and televisions.  Loving is for things like her grandpa, laughter, and running.  She is not running in order to get somewhere, like her best friend Max.  Annie likes to run barefoot through the town and park where she feels free.  Sometimes I want to break out in a run for these very same reasons.  Some people feel this way when they paint or write or sing or swing a baseball bat.  We all need something, though that lets us free our minds and focus on what is important.

Max is Annie's best friend and running partner, her "sideways shadow."  Though he runs barefoot, too, he runs for completely different reasons.  For Max, his running feet are his tickets out of town.  He wants to make it big, and running is how he plans to do it.  He wants Annie to join the track team with him, but she can't see the point in running around in circles ... in a "herd"... with shoes on ... just to win a medal.

Annie's 7th grade school year is full of changing relationships.  Her relationship with Max is strained over their different viewpoints; her relationship with her grandfather shifts as he begins to lose his memory; her family relationships change as a new baby is welcomed into their home.  Her relationship with running, though, remains constant, keeping her heart strong no matter what changes she may face.  Heartbeat is a novel in verse that lets you run right along side Annie through all the hills and valleys of her 7th grade year.

(c) 2004          Publisher:  Harper Collins          Pages:  180