From multiple award-winning author Candace Fleming and Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell comes the true story of a woman who always got what she wanted: Isabella Stewart Gardner. A New England Book Award Finalist For years, the indomitable Isabella Stewart Gardner searched the world for magnificent artwork and filled her home with a truly unique collection, with the aim of turning it into a museum, which she established in 1903. Isabella always did things her own way. One day she'd wear baseball gear to the symphony, the next, she'd be seen strolling down the street with zoo lions. It was no surprised that she was very particular about how she arranged her exhibits. They were not organized historically, stylistically, or by artist. Instead, they were arranged based on the connections Isabella felt toward the art, a connection she hoped to encourage in her visitors. For years, her museum delighted generations of Bostonians and visitors with the collections arranged exactly as she wanted. But in 1990, a spectacular burglary occurred when two thieves disguised as police officers stole thirteen paintings, valued at $500 million, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. They have yet to be recovered, though a $10 million reward is still being offered for their safe return. Author Candace Fleming perfectly captures Isabella's inimitable personality and drive, accompanied by exuberant illustrations by Matthew Cordell. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection A CCBC Choice

From multiple award-winning author Candace Fleming and Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell comes the true story of a woman who always got what she wanted: Isabella Stewart Gardner. A New England Book Award Finalist For years, the indomitable Isabella Stewart Gardner searched the world for magnificent artwork and filled her home with a truly unique collection, with the aim of turning it into a museum, which she established in 1903. Isabella always did things her own way. One day she'd wear baseball gear to the symphony, the next, she'd be seen strolling down the street with zoo lions. It was no surprised that she was very particular about how she arranged her exhibits. They were not organized historically, stylistically, or by artist. Instead, they were arranged based on the connections Isabella felt toward the art, a connection she hoped to encourage in her visitors. For years, her museum delighted generations of Bostonians and visitors with the collections arranged exactly as she wanted. But in 1990, a spectacular burglary occurred when two thieves disguised as police officers stole thirteen paintings, valued at $500 million, including a Rembrandt and a Vermeer. They have yet to be recovered, though a $10 million reward is still being offered for their safe return. Author Candace Fleming perfectly captures Isabella's inimitable personality and drive, accompanied by exuberant illustrations by Matthew Cordell. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection A CCBC Choice

Born in 1915 to one of New England’s elite wealthy families, Isabella Gardner was expected to follow a certain path in life—one that would take her from marriageable debutante to proper society lady. But that plan was derailed when at age eighteen, Isabella caused a drunk-driving accident. Her family, to shield her from disgrace, sent her to Europe for acting studies, not foreseeing how life abroad would fan the romantic longings and artistic impulses that would define the rest of Isabella’s years. In Not at All What One Is Used To, author Marian Janssen tells the story of this passionate, troubled woman, whose career as a poet was in constant compromise with her wayward love life and her impulsive and reckless character. Life took Gardner from the theater world of the 1930s and ’40s to the poetry scene of the ’50s and ’60s to the wild, bohemian art life of New York’s Hotel Chelsea in the ’70s. She often followed where romance, rather than career, led her. At nineteen, she had an affair with a future president of Ireland, then married and divorced three famous American husbands in succession. Turning from acting to poetry, Gardner became associate editor of Chicago’s Poetry magazine and earned success with her best-received collection, Birthdays from the Ocean, in 1955. Soon after, her life took a turn when she met the southern poet Allen Tate. He was married to Caroline Gordon but left her to wed Gardner, who moved to Minneapolis and gave up writing to please him, but after a few short years, Tate fell for a young nun and abandoned her. In the liveliest of places at the right times, Gardner associated with many of the most significant cultural figures of her age, including her cousin Robert Lowell, T.S. Eliot, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Virgil Thomson, Tennessee Williams, and Robert Penn Warren. But famous connections could never save Isabella from herself. Having abandoned her work, she suffered through alcoholism, endured more failed relationships, and watched the lives of her children unravel fatally. Toward the end of her life, though, she took her pen back up for the poems in her final volume. Redeemed by her writing, Gardner died alone in 1981, just after being named the first poet laureate of New York State. Through interviews with many Gardner intimates and extensive archival research, author Marian Janssen delves deep into the life of a woman whose poetry, according to one friend, “probably saved her sanity.” Much more than a biography, Not at All What One Is Used To is the story of a woman whose tumultuous life was emblematic of the cultural unrest at the height of the twentieth century.

Lady Isabella Willoughby has always been patient and proper. But secretly, scandalously, she longs to be wild—to wear daring gowns while dancing the night away. Above all, she craves one thing: To be more than merely a "friend" to Marcus, the dashing, sinfully handsome Lord Roth. Marcus has everything—power, prestige, wealth . . . enemies. He thrives on danger and lives life to the fullest knowing each day might be his last, for he carries a dark family secret which precipitates one simple rule—never fall in love. Especially not with dear Bella, who has, of late, transformed herself into a siren, bewitching every male she encounters with her newly unfettered sensuality. Marcus must not allow himself to be tempted—but his resolve is weakening by the minute. For what Isabella desires, she is determined to get . . .

Extensively researched and richly detailed, this biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner is the first to vividly portray the extraordinary life and times of one of the 19th-century's most fascinating and eccentric women--muse and mentor to the likes of Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and George Santayana. 40 photos. Full-color insert.

"This book takes you through the collection gallery by gallery, illuminating the art and installations in each room"--From preface.

Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, Metropolis, available now! “[A] highly entertaining literary thriller about fine art and foolish choices.” —Parade “[A] nimble mystery.” —The New York Times Book Review “Gripping.” —O, The Oprah Magazine Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—still the largest unsolved art theft in history—one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece—the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years—may itself be a forgery. The Art Forger is a thrilling novel about seeing—and not seeing—the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.

A hilarious new story from debut picture book artist Isabella Kung. Fuzzball is Queen of the house. Her subjects just LOVE how she scales the tallest shelves and drags their belongings across the floor. Hear how they shout her name everywhere she goes ... "NOFUZZBALL!" But when they leave her queendom for the weekend, she questions whether she should be a more benevolent ruler.Fans of funny, lovable characters like Aaron Blabey's Pig the Pug, Mo Willems's Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and David Shannon's No, David! will fall in love with this furry, feline despot.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is world renowned for a superb collection of over 10,000 objects that range from ancient Chinese bronzes to Renaissance tapestries, from paintings by Raphael and Rubens to those of Whistler and Matisse. This guidebook charts new pathways through the beloved institution and tells the story its founder, a trail-blazing American who was among the most prominent patrons of her day. Isabella Stewart Gardner built a Venetian-inspired palazzo in Boston to house her exquisite and thought-provoking arrangement of art objects from diverse cultures and periods of history to share with the world. she hosted luminaries in the worlds of music, dance, and literature and supported such famed artists as Henry James and John Singer Sargent. Exploring the museum room by room, the authors of this book look at masterpieces by Botticelli, Rembrandt, Titian, and others, as well as hidden treasures, including often overlooked decorative arts, collected letters, and photographs. Rather than positioning the museum simply as a historical gem, they present it as a site for forging connections between past and present and reinforcing the founder's legacy of sustaining contemporary art, music, and education with initiatives supported by space in the New Wing designed by Renzo Piano and constructed in 2012. Featuring spectacular photography, the book captures this unique museum, helping us consider anew what the museum meant in Gardner's time and what it means in ours.

Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.