Who Stole Mona Lisa? - Ruthie Knapp

Illustrated by Jill McElmurry
Bloomsbury, 2010
HC $17.99
32 pgs.
Rating:  4, cool book
Endpapers:  Blue, red, green folksy "yoyos" (not sure of their significance...)

This story is told by the famous painting, the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo daVinci.  She begins in the Louvre, where she's hung for many years...but then she goes back to her beginnings.  She tells of daVinci painting her and tells about about Lisa Gheradini, who was the model for the painting.  She tells of the different palaces where she hung and how Napoleon, the last French ruler to "own" her gave her to the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Then the story changes.  She tells of the man who stole her from the wall, and what happened to her in the two years (1911 on) that she was lost to the world. 

So interesting!  I'd  love to do a one or two day lesson about daVinci, his inventions, the Mona Lisa, and various other cool things that are attributed to his genius.

There's an Author's Note that gives more information.  The illustrations are wonderful, folky, with a number of great borders.