Chasing Vermeer, released by Scholastic Press in 2004, is her best-known and most highly praised book.

Illustrated by Brett Helquist, it concerns the fictitious theft of a painting by 17th-century Dutch artist Jan Vermeer.

[3] Balliett has also published two oral histories involving Nantucket ghost stories in the 1980s, which have been consolidated into one book, "Nantucket Ghosts" released by Down East Books in 2006.

[4] She was born Elizabeth Balliett, but her mother started calling her Blue shortly after her birth.

[4][5] Before releasing Chasing Vermeer, she taught third grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.