The Calder Game by Blue Balliett

This book was written by the same author as Chasing Vermeer, and I gave it a rating of four out of five. Calder and his two friends enjoy finding adventure and looking for patterns in their lives. Calder was named after a famous artist, and many of the artist's sculptures start appearing all over the place. Calder and his father travel to England where they discover a new sculpture by the artist has recently been erected in a small village. Several days later, Calder and the large sculpture disappear. There are no clues as to what happened, and no one knows if the two disappearances are related. Calder's two friends are flown overseas to help the police find him. The more days that pass, the less chance there is that he will be found alive.

The plot was interesting, because Calder went from being the main character to the main conflict in the story. His disappearance is the main focus for the second half of the book. Readers will find themselves trying to figure out the location of the missing sculpture, and they will also start thinking like Calder to try to find him. The plot moved a little slowly for my liking, but having the main character disappear was unusual.

The lexile level from lexile.com is 830.