The Calder Game by Blue Balliett (2008)

Signed copy from ALA. I enjoyed her Chasing Vermeer, a kids book incorporating art. It is obvious from the title that the artist involved is Alexander Calder. Three kids from Chicago go to a Calder exhibit, the kid named after Calder gets involved in playing the Calder Game, which is just to take five things - physical object or ideas and to balance them out into a mobile like structure. I guess the game concept did not draw me, but the story was OK. Calder goes with his dad to England, where they stay in a town where a Calder statue has been recently erected by an anonymous donor. Calder, the boy, disappears and his friends get flown over to help find him. We get a bit of a feel for an English town. I wasn't blown away by the story, but I still like the way she intertwines a kid story with art.