Claudia Miravista has always been a loner, so she doesn't mind being the only student without a partner for the class project at the art museum. She relates to paintings better, anyway, and she even has a one-sided conversation with a boy in the painting she is studying. But she's startled to see him in another painting, especially when he starts talking back. Trapped in a world of paint and canvas for centuries by an evil witch, the boy begs Claudia to help him escape. She doesn't think twice about rescuing her only real friend, but first she needs to find a way into his world. This well-paced mystery offers a pleasing protagonist and a very unusual setting. Vance cleverly injects the story with a bevy of secondary characters, many of whom readers will recognize from European paintings and popular art, and humorous footnotes from a fictional art-history textbook balance the tension. Themes of trust and loyalty figure prominently in this story, which explores what it means to be a true friend.

Gr 5-8 Aiming to do for art history what Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" series (Disney-Hyperion) has done for Greek mythology, Vance's novel follows its 12-year-old protagonist, a budding artist named Claudia Miravista, into a world where famous artists and art iconography come to life as dynamic, idiosyncratic characters. When she unexpectedly spots a living boy, Pim, peering out from the background of a painting at the local museum, Claudia is unexpectedly drawn into both a friendship and an interdimensional conflict, which requires her to join Pim in a mysterious realm built by the imaginations of every major artist since the Renaissance. Initially bogged down by a great deal of explanatory setup (necessary to make such an abstract conceit stick), Vance's story flares to life when Claudia crosses into the canvas for the first time. Soon, she's trading gossip with the Mona Lisa , befriending one of C.M. Coolidge's poker-playing dogs, and running from a particularly frightening Max Ernst creationall to free Pim from the clutches of an evil artist-witch named Nee Gezicht. Helped along by tongue-in-cheek footnotes from a fictional art encyclopedia, adventurous readers will end up learning a great deal about art history along the way. VERDICT A conventional misfit-turned-hero tale elevated by an inspired concept. Abigail Garnett, Brooklyn Public Library

Claudia Miravista is a budding artist who lacks the ability to relate to students her own age. On a class field trip to a local art museum, Claudia becomes the odd man out after a group project assignment. After wandering through the museum alone to find a painting to study, Claudia finds a magical disappearing boy in Dutch artwork. This encounter allows Claudia to see beyond the surface into a magical world inside the paintings. It is in this magical realm that she meets Pim, a Dutch boy imprisoned in the world behind the canvas for centuries by a witch. Pim believes that Claudia is his only chance to escape and convinces her to enter the world behind the canvas to help set him free, along with the help of an ancient artist and magical goo made in a kitchen.Destroying the witch's most prized possession is the goal, and Claudia sets forth into an extraordinary and dangerous world where she begins to learn the meaning of courage, true friendship, and discerning between good and evil. With footnotes from a fictional encyclopedia, where parallels between Leonardo da Vinci and certain famous turtles are mentioned, and the wealth of information in the text as Claudia discusses famous and not so famous works of art, Behind the Canvas is a fresh take on blending fantasy with historical fiction and art history in a way that is extremely clever and refreshing.Stephanie Wilkes.