Blue Balliett was born in New York City and had a fascination with art from a young age. She would frequently visit art museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Frick Collection. Her love for art and the mysteries that surrounded crowded buses and trains in the city led her to study art history in college at Brown University. After college, she moved to Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, where she wrote two books of ghost stories. It was there that she met her husband and started a family.
After moving to Chicago, Balliett began teaching 3rd grade at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. She wanted to explore the ways kids perceive connections between seemingly unrelated events and situations, and this led her to write her first children's book, Chasing Vermeer. The book explores the theft of a Vermeer painting and the controversial ideas within the three-dimensional art world. Balliett's second book, The Wright 3, continues to explore these themes, focusing on architecture as art and the preservation of old buildings.
Balliett's third book, The Calder Game, takes place in a small community in England, where she had to do lots of eavesdropping, poking around, tiptoeing through graveyards, and climbing walls. Her books have now been translated into 34 languages, and Warner Bros. Pictures has acquired the film rights to Chasing Vermeer. Balliett is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library's 21st Century Award, and she has appeared on NBC's Today Show and been featured in various national and international publications. She currently lives in Chicago with her family, within walking distance of Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House.