
The Mona Lisa Vanishes
A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
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Narrated by:
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Carlotta Brentan
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By:
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Nicholas Day
About this listen
On 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.
Here is a middle-grade nonfiction written at the pace of a thriller, shot through with stories of crime and celebrity, genius and beauty.©2023 Nicholas Day (P)2023 Listening Library
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Critic reviews
Georgia Children's Book Award: Nominated
2024, Robert F. Sibert Medal: Winner
“The tale of a stunning art heist told with a contagious love of stranger-than-fiction true stories!” —Steve Sheinkin, Newbery Honor–winning author of Bomb
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Story
Laura Rodríguez Colón has a plan: no matter what the grown-ups say, she will live with her parents again. Can you blame her? It’s tough to make friends as the new kid at school. And while staying at her aunt’s house is okay, it just isn’t the same as being in her own space. So when Laura finds a puppy, it seems like fate. If she can train the puppy to become a therapy dog, then maybe she’ll be allowed to visit her parents. Maybe the dog will help them get better and things will finally go back to the way they should be.
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Hope, Acceptance, Love
- By Anonymous User on 11-16-24
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Lasagna Means I Love You
- By: Kate O'Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Annie Q
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nan was all the family Mo ever needed. But suddenly she’s gone, and Mo finds herself in foster care after her uncle decides she’s not worth sticking around for. Nan left her a notebook and advised her to get a hobby, like ferret racing or palm reading. But how could a hobby fix anything in her newly topsy-turvy life? Then Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else’s family recipes. Even though Nan never cooked, Mo can’t tear her eyes away. Not so much from the recipes, but the stories attached to them.
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I love lasagna!
- By Tonja on 03-14-23
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House Arrest
- By: K.A. Holt
- Narrated by: Alex Kydd
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Timothy is on probation. It's a strange word - something that happens to other kids, to delinquents, not to kids like him. And yet, he is under house arrest for the next year. He must check in weekly with a probation officer and a therapist and keep a journal for an entire year. And mostly, he has to stay out of trouble. But when he must take drastic measures to help his struggling family, staying out of trouble proves more difficult than Timothy ever thought it would be.
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Better off reading yourself
- By Patricia Rosenberg on 02-14-23
By: K.A. Holt
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The Storyteller
- By: Brandon Hobson
- Narrated by: Curtis Michael Holland
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ziggy has ANXIETY. Partly this is because of the way his mind works, and how overwhelmed he can get when other people (especially his classmate Alice) are in the room. And partly it's because his mother disappeared when he was very young, making her one of many Native women who've gone mysteriously missing. Ziggy and his sister, Moon, want answers, but nobody around can give them.
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A good children’s story
- By Anonymous User on 05-29-25
By: Brandon Hobson
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Solimar
- The Sword of Monarchs
- By: Pam Muñoz Ryan
- Narrated by: Franchesca Agramonte
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On the brink of her Quinceañera, and her official coronation, Solimar visits the oyamel forest to sit among the monarch butterflies. There, the sun pierces through a sword-shaped crevice in a boulder, which shines on her and sends the butterflies humming and swirling around her. After the magical frenzy, she realizes she's been given a gift — and a burden: She can predict the near future!
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Not a great experience
- By Heidi on 12-09-22
By: Pam Muñoz Ryan
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To Night Owl from Dogfish
- By: Holly Goldberg Sloan, Meg Wolitzer
- Narrated by: Imani Parks, Cassandra Morris, full cast, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Avery Bloom, who's bookish, intense, and afraid of many things, particularly deep water, lives in New York City. Bett Devlin, who's fearless, outgoing, and loves all animals as well as the ocean, lives in California. What they have in common is that they are both 12 years old and are both being raised by single, gay dads. When their dads fall in love, Bett and Avery are sent, against their will, to the same sleepaway camp. Their dads hope they will find common ground and become friends - and possibly, one day, even sisters.
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Charming and funny
- By D. Bailey on 02-17-19
By: Holly Goldberg Sloan, and others
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The Shape of Thunder
- By: Jasmine Warga
- Narrated by: Reena Dutt, Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Cora hasn’t spoken to her best friend, Quinn, in a year. Despite living next door to each other, they exist in separate worlds of grief. Cora is still grappling with the death of her beloved sister in a school shooting, and Quinn is carrying the guilt of what her brother did. On the day of Cora’s 12th birthday, Quinn leaves a box on her doorstep with a note. She has decided that the only way to fix things is to go back in time to the moment before her brother changed all their lives forever - and stop him.
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Best for younger MG readers
- By Pink Amy on 01-04-24
By: Jasmine Warga
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The Labors of Hercules Beal
- By: Gary D. Schmidt
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Herc Beal knows who he's named after—a mythical hero—but he's no superhero. He's the smallest kid in his class. So when his homeroom teacher at his new middle school gives him the assignment of duplicating the mythical Hercules's amazing feats in real life, he's skeptical. After all, there are no Nemean Lions on Cape Cod—and not a single Hydra in sight.
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So funny with lots of tender life lessons
- By Smith on 01-26-24
By: Gary D. Schmidt
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The Eyes and the Impossible
- By: Dave Eggers
- Narrated by: Ethan Hawke
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Johannes, a free dog, lives in an urban park by the sea. His job is to be the Eyes—to see everything that happens within the park and report back to the park’s elders, three ancient Bison. His friends—a seagull, a raccoon, a squirrel, and a pelican—work with him as the Assistant Eyes, observing the humans and other animals who share the park and making sure the Equilibrium is in balance. But changes are afoot. More humans arrive in the park. A new building, containing mysterious and hypnotic rectangles, goes up. And then there are the goats.
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A beautiful story with a tremendous narration
- By Chuck on 07-15-23
By: Dave Eggers
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The War That Saved My Life
- By: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
- Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada's twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn't waste a minute - she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan.
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Great historical Fiction -- 2016 Newbery Honor
- By Mel on 01-05-17
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The Wrong Way Home
- By: Kate O'Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Caitlin Kinnunen
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Fern’s lived at the Ranch, an off-the-grid, sustainable community in upstate New York, since she was six. The work is hard, but Fern admires the Ranch's leader, Dr. Ben. So when Fern’s mother sneaks them away in the middle of the night and says Dr. Ben is dangerous, Fern doesn't believe it. She wants desperately to go back, but her mom just keeps driving. Suddenly thrust into the treacherous, toxic, outside world, Fern thinks only about how to get home again.
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Great story!
- By Loribz on 03-08-25
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Eb & Flow
- By: Kelly J. Baptist
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Aaron Goodson
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ebony and De’Kari (aka Flow) do not get along. How could they when their cafeteria scuffle ended with De'Kari's ruined shoes, Ebony on the ground, and both of them with ten days of at-home suspension? Now Eb and Flow have two weeks to think about and explain their behavior—to their families, to each other, and ultimately to themselves. Single-parent homes, tight funds, and sibling dynamics provide a balancing act for the growing tweens. And whether they realize it or not, these two have a lot more in common than they think.
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Compelling
- By a reader on 07-07-24
By: Kelly J. Baptist
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Freewater
- By: Amina Luqman-Dawson
- Narrated by: Cary Hite, Sisi Aisha Johnson
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Under the cover of night, 12-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he adores her and fears for her life, Homer knows there’s no turning back, not with the overseer on their trail. Through tangled vines, secret doorways, and over a sky bridge, the two find a secret community called Freewater, deep in the swamp.
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Powerful, Enlightening, and Empowering!
- By sabreen jai on 03-05-22
A Mona Lisa Book Report
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Amazing
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I love this book!!
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Remarkable Research
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I recommend this book highly.
Great listening to
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Too Long
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the supense
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The Mona Lisa Hopscotch
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Fascinating true thriller!
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Wow! So much fun and I learned a lot, too
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