The friendship between sixth-graders Petra and Calder is threatened when Tommy returns to school after several months’ absence. Calder and Tommy are longtime buddies, but the relationship between Petra and Calder is still new and vulnerable. Can the three sort through their issues in time to work as a unit to save the Robie House from destruction? Just three blocks from their school, the Frank Lloyd Wright building is suffering from financial woes and structural deterioration. Its owner, the University of Chicago, plans to dissect the building into four sections, to be donated to museums in the United States and abroad. In response to the proposal, the trio’s teacher challenges her class to decide if Robie House is a piece of art, and if so, to consider the consequences of the building’s deconstruction. The ensuing conversation leads to a student-directed project to save the building from being dismantled. Meanwhile, Petra, Calder, and Tommy become entangled in astounding coincidences and mysterious happenings revolving around their interest in Robie House. Is it possible that the spirit of the house itself is playing a role in current events? What about its long-dead architect? Could the stone fish Tommy found in the yard have once belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright? As in her debut novel, Chasing Vermeer (Scholastic Press, 2004), Blue Balliett weaves an intriguing web of clues, codes, and mystical events together to create a solidly entertaining story for young readers. (Ages 9–12)

From the New York Times-bestselling team behind Chasing Vermeer comes another thought-provoking art mystery featuring Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie house--now in After Words paperback! 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.