Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster; 162 pages; mystery; ages 10-14; ISBN: 978-0-689-71181-7.
Claudia Kincaid, age 11, doesn't feel properly appreciated at home, so she runs away. She's not the kind to sleep on the street or in a bus station, though: she decides to take up residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and because she'd like to have some spending money, she takes along her nine-year-old brother Jamie, who never spends his allowance. Together they learn how to avoid suspicion at the museum by camouflaging themselves in school groups during the day and hiding in the bathrooms at night until everyone's gone home. (They bathe in the fountain.) When Claudia becomes enchanted by a statue of an angel whose creator has remained a mystery for nearly 500 years, she becomes a girl on a mission: she must track down the statue's former owner, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and uncover the angel's secret.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler provides wish fulfillment for any young reader who's ever dreamed about spending the night in a museum and getting away with it by outsmarting adults. Konigsburg has a great sense of humor: "If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it." Her drawings leave something to be desired, but I liked her inclusion of a map of the Metropolitan.
Winner of the 1968 Newbery Medal. For further reading, check out Konigsburg's other book from '67, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, which won a Newbery Honor award the same year From the Mixed-Up Files
won the Medal! (She's the only author who can claim that feat.)
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