Blue Balliett was born in 1955 in New York. On her birth certificate it says Elizabeth. Blue is an American author, best known for her award-winning novel for children, Chasing Vermeer.
Chasing Vermeer, released by Scholastic Press in 2004, is her best-known and most highly praised book. Illustrated by Brett Helquist, it concerns the fictitious theft of a painting by 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. The book was a bestseller and won a number of accolades and awards, including the 2005 Edgar Award in the Best Juvenile category.
A sequel, The Wright 3, was released in April, 2006, and a third, The Calder Game, was published two years later, in April 2008. The Danger Box was published in August 2010. Her latest book, Hold Fast, was published in 2013. Balliett has also published two books of Nantucket ghost stories.
Before releasing Chasing Vermeer, she taught third grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. During her tenure, she coordinated with NASA astronaut and University of Chicago alumnus John Grunsfeld (S.M., ’84, Ph.D., ’88) to send her pupil's literature and creative artwork into space during a routine Hubble space telescope mission on the Columbia space shuttle.
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