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From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Review

I decided to feature my all time favorite tween read as today's Tween Tuesday read. Yes, it's an oldie, but it's such a goodie!! I first read this book (or actually listened) in fourth grade. I checked out the cassette tapes from my library and listened to the book every night before bed for the three weeks I had it.

I wanted to be Claudia. I wanted to run away and live in a museum and uncover the truth about an ancient statue. Of course, there was no way this adventure would happen to me in real life. I was terribly painfully shy as a tween, but when it came to books, I could be whoever I wanted. And when I was Claudia, I was adventurous, brave, solving mysteries and hiding in a museum. I could live out the adventure through Claudia and Jamie. That's a very powerful thing for a reader-especially tween readers-and that's one reason this book meant so much to me.

I re-read this book for my children's lit class last year and it had the same charm and adventure that I remembered. Some of the references are outdated for today's reader (Claudia and Jaime get coins from the fountain and eat for very cheap and there's no way a stunt like the one Claudia and Jaime pull off could happen in today's high tech and security filled world) but that can easily be overlooked. I love the fact that while there's a mystery in the story, this isn't a mystery book, so it's accesible to all sorts of readers, even those who don't typically enjoy mysteries. Reader's will be swept away on an adventure and you'll never look at a museum the same way again.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Feature

ISBN13: 9781416949756
Condition: New
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From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Overview

When suburban Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, she knows she doesn't just want to run from somewhere she wants to run to somewhere--to a place that is comfortable, beautiful, and preferably elegant. She chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Knowing that her younger brother, Jamie, has money and thus can help her with the serious cash flow problem she invites him along.

Once settled into the museum, Claudia and Jamie, find themselves caught up in the mystery of an angel statue that the museum purchased at an auction for a bargain price of 0. The statue is possibly an early work of the Renaissance master Michelangelo, and therefore worth millions. Is it? Or isn't it? Claudia is determined to find out. This quest leads Claudia to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the remarkable old woman who sold the statue and to some equally remarkable discoveries about herself.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler Specifications

After reading this book, I guarantee that you will never visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art (or any wonderful, old cavern of a museum) without sneaking into the bathrooms to look for Claudia and her brother Jamie. They're standing on the toilets, still, hiding until the museum closes and their adventure begins. Such is the impact of timeless novels . . . they never leave us. E. L. Konigsburg won the 1967 Newbery Medal for this tale of how Claudia and her brother run away to the museum in order to teach their parents a lesson. Little do they know that mystery awaits!

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Customer Reviews

Hilarious - Z. M. - Utah, USA
Boy, could I relate to this book. I read when I was younger and it was one of those books that I related to. I, like the main character am the only girl with three younger brothers. The main character just wants to get away for awhile, but she can't do it herself. After watching all her brothers carefully she chooses her brother that makes the most money. With a very limited budget the two decide to run away to New York City. Oh, and in a museum. sounds easy enough, eh? It is for them. The main character has been planning for weeks and she has it all figured out. This book was hilarious and one I read in one sitting. I enjoyed every minute of it! I recommend this book to everyone!

excellent service - kg -
My cd's first came and the discs were missing from the box. I wrote the seller and they corrected issue immediately and had new ones sent to me. They came in excellent condition and we have already enjoyed them. Thank you very much for backing your product! Excellent and very prompt service in correcting the problem!

this book is waaaaay over-rated and should be shot - Featherhead - USA
Two precocious Manhattan children, Claudia and Jamie, run away and live for weeks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They investigate the provenance of a mysterious recent acquisition, a small Renaissance statue once owned by an eccentric elderly woman. Eventually they meet her, solve the mystery, and return home.

The Newbery committee swung and missed with this one. The story line itself isn't the problem; it's the execution. The narrative frame has the old woman telling the story to her solicitor. She reports verbatim conversations the children had, supposedly garnered from reminiscences they tape-recorded. But she keeps intruding into the story of Jamie and Claudia to address the solicitor, who is presumably reading the manuscript. A straight narrative with a narrator who stayed in the background would have worked much better.

Mirroring the clumsy frame is the tone-deaf exposition and dialogue. Jamie says "Oh boloney" about every other page and is repeatedly "corrected" by Claudia for his supposedly poor grammar, including the phrase "look up under" (as in "look it up under the other name"). But Jamie does occasionally use incorrect English, in statements like, "You sure know how to nervous a guy." That's the best the author could come up with to portray a boy speaking sloppy English? She makes him sound like English isn't even his native language.

One baffling sentence after another makes its appearance: "They knew ... they would accumulate a lot of hunger" and "[Jamie washed] his mouth but not the eyes of his face." Everyone keeps saying the statue was "sculptured" rather than "sculpted," Claudia says she packed her "petticoats" for running away, and the narrator offers this anachronistic simile: "it was like trying to wrap a loose peck of potatoes into a neat four-cornered package." I know the narrator is an elderly woman, but she lives in the 1960s, not the 1860s. Petticoats and pecks are out of time and out of place here. One line near the end is an unintentionally ironic comment on the text itself: Mrs. Frankweiler says at one point that Claudia sounded "like an actress in a bad play -- unreal."

The drawings are even more unsatisfying than the text. Done by the author, they are rough sketches rather than finished illustrations. The scratchy pencil lines call attention to themselves, so rather than see a whole image, one sees these lines. Faces are elongated and dyspeptic, and postures oddly hunched. The overall effect is creepy; the book's editor should have insisted on a professional illustrator.

This book is appropriate for NO audience. Steer children away from it.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 05, 2010 04:44:05

Children's Books

Sunday, September 5, 2010