This threesome of books for tweens combines mystery and puzzles to double reading and problem-solving pleasure.

Blue Balliet's "The Calder Game" (Scholastic Press, $17.99, ages 9-12) revolves around the puzzling disappearances of an Alexander Calder sculpture titled "Minotaur" and that of 12-year-old Calder Pillay, named for the famous artist.

To help rescue Calder, his friends Petra and Tommy form a tenuous partnership, as delicately balanced as one of Alexander Calder's other inventions, the mobile.

As Petra and Tommy puzzle over clues, they consider larger questions: Can anyone truly own a work of art? Should public art exist in a place where the public rejects it? Can graffiti ever be considered art?

Just as there are different ways to look at art, Petra, Tommy and Calder have a unique style of problem solving: Petra uses words, Tommy observes and Calder uses his pentominoes to find solutions within patterns. In this third book about the trio, each begins to adopt some of the others' strategies.

A hedge maze, reminiscent of the home of the mythological Minotaur, adds its shadowy twists and turns to the search for the two Calders.

Balliet's writing is fast-paced and highly inventive and encourages creative thinking. The Calder Game of the title is one such imaginative activity: Make a mobile of five items. The five can be thoughts or concrete objects. Arrange them in a way that creates "balance, beauty and surprise."

Those who enjoy "The Calder Game" will also want to test their reasoning skills in two other art mysteries by Balliet: "Chasing Vermeer" and "The Wright 3."

As with these two books, "The Calder Game" features the stylized illustrations of Brett Helquist. Helquist deftly captures the characters' emotions and cleverly draws the reader in with interesting perspectives, close-ups and cropped images.

Sixth-grader Gil Goodson navigates a maze of challenges in an attempt to win prize money in Jody Feldman's "The Gollywhopper Games" (Greenwillow Books, $16.99, ages 10-14). The competition is sponsored by Golly Toy and Game Company, his father's former employer. Thousands of children have traveled to University Stadium to enter the Games.

Gil solves his way through increasingly difficult paper and three-dimensional puzzles while struggling to escape the bullying ridicule of fellow contestant Rocky Titus. Rocky torments Gil every chance he gets by bringing up Gil's dad's dismissal from Golly Toy and Game.

Gil's father was accused of attempting to steal money from Golly. A jury found him not guilty, but a cloud of suspicion hangs over the Goodson family. Gil wants to use the prize money to finance a move far away from Orchard Heights and Rocky's taunts.

In the final rounds of the tournament Gil makes choices that test his honesty, as he watches Rocky repeatedly break rules. Suspense builds as competitors dwindle down to a last few, including Gil and Rocky.

Aside from Gil, the characters in "The Gollywhopper Games" are colorful but undeveloped. Feldman makes up for this with detailed descriptions of the Games themselves and the clever puzzles.

The 12-year-old title character in Eric Berlin's "The Puzzling World of Winston Breen" (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $16.99, ages 9-12) is a puzzle master. Winston's skills come in handy when his sister, Katie, finds four sticks carved with seemingly random letters in the false bottom of a wooden box. For once, Winston is stumped.

He discovers the box's former owner was the late Livia Little, daughter of Walter Fredericks. Fredericks had been an inventor and the richest man in Glenville.

Winston discovers there are four sets of these sticks, and three adults own the other pieces. The 16 sticks form a puzzle that can be solved only if all four owners work together to solve it.

That solution will lead them to a valuable ring, hidden by the puzzle's creator. Potential puzzle solvers include Violet Lewis, the town librarian and only surviving child of Fredericks, and two treasure hunters: David North and Mickey Glowacka.

Fredericks created the puzzle sticks and left them to his four adult children, but now most of them are in the hands of outsiders who form an uneasy alliance.

More clues lead to more puzzles, which lead to even more puzzles. Readers can test their puzzle-solving abilities both in unlocking the mystery of the puzzle sticks.

The author inserts short puzzles throughout the mystery: word puzzles, number puzzles, codes, logic puzzles and more, with solutions at the end of the book. Eric Berlin has a Web site, www.winstonbreen.com, where you can download and print the puzzles.

Berlin's suspenseful plot moves at a brisk pace and leads to an action-filled climax. Tweens can read the book straight through and then go back to solve Berlin's puzzles after the mysteries have been solved.

Whether you're a puzzle lover who's looking for new challenges or an enthusiastic reader who loves intriguing characters and complicated plots, one of these titles is sure to satisfy.