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Nancy Kunhardt Lodge is a former professor of Renaissance Art History, with a Masters in Classics and a PhD in Art History. She has taught at universities in the U.S. and Italy. As a graduate student, she was awarded Rockefeller and Armand Hammer Fellowship Awards. She is the granddaughter of Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, author of Pat the Bunny, still the best-selling baby book of all time, and cousin of six-time Emmy winner Peter Kunhardt. She was inspired to write Mona Lisa’s Ghost when in 2004, the Louvre Museum scanned the Mona Lisa in order to measure the paint layers. This became the jumping off point for a mystery about how the fantastic landscape and Lisa are affected by the scan. She thought how wonderful it would be to enter the painting at the horizon line, it becomes one of Lucy’s most dangerous adventures. The third inspiration was Einstein’s theory of consciousness-based reality. This is a journey into the power of the human mind, a lesson in learning to look beyond the surface to a person’s essence, as Leonardo’s did in his painting, and the importance of original thought. Both this book and The Crystal Navigator have been published in Spain. The publisher made video trailers for both. Here’s Mona Lisa’s Ghost.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4CwSj4gH3HA
Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite
Mona Lisa's Ghost: Lucy Nightingale, Book 2 is a science fiction and fantasy novel for children and preteens written by Nancy Kunhardt Lodge. Who stole the Mona Lisa from its secure location in the Louvre, leaving no traces of the theft? Lucy Nightingale and her science-geek best friend, Sam Winter, formed the SLARP, otherwise known as Sam and Lucy’s Anomalies Research Project, to solve exactly this kind of mystery. Lucy had a particular fondness for this picture, as well as its brilliant creator, as a result of her adventures in the first book in this series, The Crystal Navigator. So when her teacher showed her class the video about the Mona Lisa being restored to its place in the Louvre, after having been studied with a Spectrographic Scanner, Lucy was stunned to see the changes that had occurred to the picture. The golden-toned backdrop had been replaced with an angry purple sky that bristled with lightning bolts. Lisa, herself, was in tears, and when Lucy looked even more closely at her eyes, she could swear there were letters in Lisa’s eyes. What had happened? Lucy was determined to find out and try to reverse the damage which seemed to be worsening before her very eyes.
Nancy Kunhardt Lodge’s science fiction and fantasy novel for children, Mona Lisa's Ghost: Lucy Nightingale, Book 2, is a beautifully written, imaginative and action-packed adventure story that just happens to have one of the most intriguing young heroes I’ve come across -- and I’m thrilled to see that she’s a girl. The relationship between Sam and Lucy is marvelous, and it comes quite close to that between Q and agent 007 in Ian Fleming’s iconic James Bond series. I love seeing what new device Sam dreams up, and then getting to see Lucy use it in the field is grand fun. This time-traveling series educates as it entertains, and while it’s geared toward a younger audience, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking and mind-expanding science fiction adventure tales. Mona Lisa's Ghost: Lucy Nightingale, Book 2 is most highly recommended.
