The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity

About this book

“The tale of a stunning art heist with a contagious love of stranger-than-fiction true stories!”—Steve Sheinkin, Newbery Honor–winning author of BombThe true story of how Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece became the most famous painting in the world after being stolen from the Louvre, written as a “witty thriller” (The New York Times) and featuring black-and-white illustrations throughout.SIBERT MEDAL WINNER • BOSTON GLOBE—HORN BOOK AWARD WINNER • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, NPR, The New York Public Library, The Chicago Public Library, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's BooksOn a hot August day in Paris, just over a century ago, a desperate guard burst into the office of the director of the Louvre and shouted, La Joconde, c’est partie! The Mona Lisa, she’s gone!No one knew who was behind the heist. Was it an international gang of thieves? Was it an art-hungry American millionaire? Was it the young Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, who was about to remake the very art of painting?Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves—and detectives—of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa—the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all.

About the author

Nicholas Day has 4 books in the store, published between 2023 and 2026, mostly in Juvenile Nonfiction.

Details

Format

Paperback

ISBN-13

9780593904213

Publisher

Random House Studio

Published

September 9, 2025

First published

September 5, 2023

Pages

288

Weight

8.8 oz

Editions

3 (Paperback · Hardcover)

Subject

Juvenile Nonfiction