Masterpiece by Elise Broach

The daughter of my principal gave me this book last year and in her way told me that it was an awful book. Now, I take that with a grain of salt but, I have to admit, it didn't make me in a hurry to read it. Now that I have, I think she was reacting to the age of the protagonist. That is as always the struggle with struggling readers: finding something age appropriate that is also written at their reading level.

I actually found Masterpiece fairly delightful. It's about a beetle named Marvin who befriends a human 11 year old named James. James is a pretty ordinary kid in a quiet and serious way. His mom is a high powered New York real estate agent (and everything that implies) who is remarried to business type man. James father Kyle is an artist. So, when James turns 11 his father gets him a pen and ink set. However, James isn't terribly artistic so he's not super excited about this.

The beetles who live in the walls of James's apartment rather like him so Marvin decides to make him a present with his ink set. What he produces is a miniature masterpiece reminiscent of Durer. This, of course, leads to problems.
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I was already vaguely familiar with Albrecht Durer, but I wasn't expecting to find his work to be so strongly referenced in a middle reader. Sometimes there can be a tendency to shoe horn educational topics into novels for kids. This can be clunky and annoying. However, when it's done well, it can be brilliant. This was done well. I loved the little art heist set up and James/Marvin's involvement seemed oddly plausible given the circumstances. Over all, this was a good read for a middle schooler but the characters will come off a little childish to older readers, I think.