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, 3D 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.

I have to say, in this series the level of pseudoscience and happenstance that leads to their more brilliant conclusions always irks me, but the story is still interesting and I learn from the characters about art. I think the portrayal of Miss Hussey is a bit flighty, but the curriculum is interesting. I like the notion behind the whole student-centered classroom, but I also see pitfalls in that Miss Hussey seems to use it as a chance to get on a soapbox about her issues and drag the kids into it whether they are on her side or not. I get so tired of the pentominoes that Calder is always trying to divine clues out of. Maybe I'm just a hard science guy, but the whole premise of his contribution seems absurd. Good mysteries, poorly solved. ( )

Calder's old friend, Tommy, has moved back to Hyde Park and the three of them are in Ms. Hussey's class sixth grade class. Before, Tommy and Calder were the best of friends. During Tommy's one year absence, Calder and Petra had become best friends. Tommy wasn't too sure if he liked it and didn't know if he wanted to be friends with Petra. Tommy's actions were as if Petra wasn't really around and he didn't want her around. This made for awkward times.

The Robie House, built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1910, had fallen into disrepair over the years. There was a plan to divide the house into three sections and send them to various museums. Something else would be built on the land. Ms. Hussey has brought the topic up and the idea that perhaps the students could drum up enough publicity to maybe save the house. The class learns a lot about the house and the architect who designed it. History, architectural style, myths, superstitions and the history of the various residents of the house.

Eerie things start to happen to people involved in the property. It is as if the house is a living being. Lights that show up inside when no one is supposed to be there. Workmen injured on the site in odd and unusual accidents. Unexplained events.

While trying to solve some of the myths and mysteries of the house, Calder, Petra and Tommy discover there is sinister activity and it is not the house that is causing it.

I enjoyed this book, as I did "Chasing Vermeer" as it gives you historical information as part of the background of the story. The kids try to work together and are also learning at the same time. There are parts that are scary where you do hold your breath, and parts where things may not work out for the good.

I will definitely keep an eye out for more works by Balliett. ( )

This book is written for children, apparently for 6th graders, since it's about 6th graders at a University School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, home of the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry (a place I visited many times in my own youth), and the Frank Lloyd Wright creation, the Robie House, which I have not visited, but I have visited other house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, so I have a better than average feel for what the Robie House may be like compared to more typical homes. The author was an Art History major, lived in Hyde Park, and taught at the University School. That explains a lot about the story of this book. It does not explain the use of pentominoes, why only a limited number of letter combinations are used, why one of the characters carries them around all day in his pocket using them like a ouija board, why the 6th graders act so badly to each other's friends, or why everything is regarded not as a possible coincidence, if any coincidence at all, but as something directly connected to something they are thinking about or has happened to them. Oh, and they seem really hung up on ghosts. Apparently, just because. I thought the funniest part of the whole book was when the main three 6th grade characters feel horrible about one of the characters never having had a home of their own. And to think, he isn't even a Millennial yet. Ha. I will not be going back to partake in other books in the author's series. ( )

Narrated by Ellen Reilly. When Chicago's famous Robie House is slated for demolition, Petra, Calder, Tommy and their 6th grade class take up their teacher's injunction to save the house. But there is more going on in the house than imagined. Workers preparing to take down the house are injured on the job and strange lights are seen from within at night. Petra, Calder, and Tommy come across strange clues of their own and one night they take things into their own hands when they sneak into the house.