Book review: 'Under the Egg' is an art treasure hunt for middle readers

<b>"UNDER THE EGG," by Laura Marx Fitzgerald, Dial, $16.99, 256 pages (ages 8-12)</b>

Theodora's grandfather Jack's last words were instructions to find a treasure: "Look under the egg ... before it's too late."

A treasure is what 12-year-old Theodora Tenpenny needs. Without her grandfather's income and with a mother who is unable to deal with reality and who has an addiction to expensive imported teas, being homeless is inevitable.

Theodora searches under Jack's painting of an egg, "a dark swirling abyss of midnight blues ... that haloed the real egg below." The real egg - the most perfect egg chosen from the hen's daily production - rests in a ceramic bowl, but neither the picture nor the egg gives hints to the treasure of which her grandfather had spoken.

Nor is treasure found on the mantle or even behind the painting when Theodora lifts it off the wall. Then, by accident, an overturned bottle of rubbing alcohol spills on the picture, mixing the colors of Jack's design. While dabbing at the canvas, Theodora finds a mural of a landscape underneath. It features a woman who resembles the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child as a cherubic toddler, suggesting it is the work of a true master and exactly the kind of thing seen in the galleries where Jack had worked as a security guard.

Theodora, who has had extensive art experiences with her grandfather, is savvy to Renaissance masterpieces (she knows the difference between a Manet and a Monet) and accepts the help of a newfound friend, Bodhi, to search out the origin of the mural. She is worried that her grandfather may have stolen it.

Without constraint, the two tenacious preteens zip around New York City's museums, libraries and gloomy bookshops, following hunches formed through research in dusty volumes and on the Internet.

Their resources include an array of quirky characters: a scheming art associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an elitist auctioneer, a street vendor who was formerly a chemist, an Episcopalian priest and a tattooed librarian. An archivist leads them to details about Theodora's grandfather's real military service from the years when the Nazis plundered Europe's art pieces.

Fitzgerald, who studied at both Harvard and Cambridge University, combines facts from art history and World War II in her debut novel. "Under the Egg" explores the same underlying theme as the recently released movie "The Monuments Men," in which searchers attempt to recover art stolen from European museums by the Nazis.

"Under the Egg" is an exciting page-turner with moments of suspense and a satisfying resolution. Throughout the book, Fitzgerald uses childlike humor and language appropriate for middle-grade readers. Fans of Blue Balliett's "Chasing Vermeer" will enjoy another mystery about a lost mural and precocious children finding solutions while thinking outside the box.%3Cimg%20src%3D%22http%3A//beacon.deseretconnect.com/beacon.gif%3Fcid%3D153435%26pid%3D46%22%20/%3E</group><group id="4E08