Historical Fiction Picture Book: Who Stole Mona Lisa?

Title: Who Stole Mona Lisa?
Author: Ruthie Knapp
Publication: 2010

Who Stole Mona Lisa is a picture book about the real happenings of the famous painting, Mona Lisa, being stolen in 1911. However the author puts a twist on the story and tells it from the paintings point of view. The author opens up the first page by saying, "They are coming to stare at me, Mona Lisa," so that the reader is automatically able to identify that it is the painting or Mona Lisa who is telling the story.

I like how Knapp uses the perspective of a inanimate object, the Mona Lisa, to tell the story. By using this technique, the reader is able to learn things that he or she would not have been able to if it had been from a spectators point of view. For example, by making Mona Lisa the main character, as a reader, you are able to be a part of the actual robbery because you hear Mona Lisa's point of view. As Knapp writes,

"One hot night in August, I heard footsteps. The man with the mustache came alone in the dark...He looked behind him, then he raised both hands and ripped me off the wall. Ouch! First I lurched sideways, then upside down. I felt sick."

As Knapp writes this, the reader can really understand the situation and empathize with how the fictitious Mona Lisa might have felt. By making Mona Lisa the main character and storyteller, the reader is able to obtain a better sense of what it must have been like to be stolen, taken from your home and in an unfamiliar place with a strange man. Making the painting a real character is one of the smartest elements I believe Knapp used in her book.

Additionally, Knapp uses beautiful cadence in her sentences to help make the book flow easily when read in your head or aloud. She uses short choppy sentences and rhyming schemes to make the book melodic. For example, "Some walk to the left. Some walk to the right. Some stoop low. Some stand on their tippy-toes" (Knapp). Because of the way she writes her book, I would love to read it to my students out loud. I do find that she uses the short choppy sentences a little too often, making it too juvenile at times.

Overall, I think this is a well written historical fiction book. Where fact and fiction are blurred nicely to create a book that is both informative and enjoyable for readers. Knapp informs the reader about painter, Leonardo da Vinci, and other historical events. However, it isn't as boring as a history book would be because she adds the story of the robbery and the first-person perspective of Mona Lisa. These elements make the book both interesting and fantastical for readers alike.