Ada Lace and the Suspicious Artist (5) (An Ada Lace Adventure)

Product Description

From Emily Calandrelli—Emmy-nominated host of Xploration Outer Space, correspondent on Bill Nye Saves the World, and graduate of MIT—comes the fifth novel in a fun illustrated chapter book series about an eight-year-old girl with a knack for science, math, and solving mysteries with technology.

Third grader and inventor extraordinaire Ada Lace is on spring break. But it’s just a little less relaxing than she’d imagined. Nina is beside herself with excitement about meeting her favorite artist and enlists Ada and Mr. Peebles’s coding-whiz nephew to help revamp her online portfolio.

When Nina finally meets Miroir, he snubs her, and her confidence is shaken—but not enough to miss the art show opening. While there, Ada spots a suspiciously familiar painting that may mean Miroir isn’t the original he claims to be.

Will the friends be able to reveal the artist’s true nature, before he fools someone else?

About the Author

Emily Calandrelli is an executive producer and the host of 
Xploration Outer Space, where she shows viewers the most exciting projects in the space industry today and a correspondent on the new series, 
Bill Nye Saves the World. Emily has a technical background with mechanical and aerospace engineering degrees from West Virginia University and Master’s degrees in aeronautics and astronautics as well as technology and policy from MIT. Emily is a professional speaker and writer and is passionate about exciting students and their families about science and space exploration. Emily is also deeply passionate about getting more girls interested in STEM and STEM careers. She lives in San Francisco. Learn more at TheSpaceGal.com.

Tamson Weston is the author of 
Hey, Pancakes!, illustrated by Stephen Gammell, and has over fifteen years experience in children’s book publishing. She works as a freelance editor and has edited books by acclaimed authors such as Adam Rex, Mac Barnett, and Dan Santat, among others. She has an MFA in writing and literature and enjoys running, biking, swimming, and lifting heavy things. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her at TamsonWeston.com.

Renée Kurilla is an illustrator of many books for kids, including 
Orangutanka: A Story in Poems by Margarita Engle, 
The Owls of Blossom Wood by Catherine Coe, and the Ada Lace Adventure series by Emily Calandrelli. She lives just south of Boston with her husband, their fluffy orange cat, Timmy, and their spiky hedgehog, Lemon. Visit her at Kurillastration.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ada Lace and the Suspicious Artist

Chapter One
A MAN NAMED MIROIR

Okay. A tick to the right,” said Nina.

“I moved it to the right before, and you said to move it back,” said Ada.

“Okay! Sorry! Wait a minute. Now I don’t know if that background looks good with these pieces. Maybe we should start over.”

“Nina!”

Ada was helping Nina build an online portfolio. It was the best way to introduce her creative energy to the universe, Nina had said. They had been at it all day, and patience was wearing thin. Ada had some of the coding skills, and Nina had a vision in her mind’s eye, but making those two things meet in the middle was harder than they thought. All the numbers, letters, tags, and brackets were starting to blur together. They had already spent an hour trying to add a feature that would allow art lovers to position an image of the piece they were thinking of buying within a picture of their space so they could see what it would look like in context. Ada had learned a few different coding languages from working on George, but Web design was a different ball game. She couldn’t quite manage what Nina wanted. And since Ada couldn’t perfect the art placement feature, Nina seemed unhappy with everything.

“I’m sorry,” said Nina. “It’s just that I want Nina Nina Land to look professional . . . impressive. I want Guy Miroir to know I’m for real.”

That was the other problem. Ada was sick of this Miroir