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From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg


This book is my first official entry to the 1001 Children's Book Challenge hosted by YS Princess.  My personal challenge is 50 books from the list this year, and I'm really glad I started with this one.

From the Mixed-Up Files is a 1968 Newberry Award winner and is a charming tale of a brother and sister who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Claudia Kincaid is 11, and she is a planner.  She has planned virtually every detail of her running away.  She's also invited her brother Jamie, who has money because he's a card-sharp and a skinflint.  They disappear without fanfare and take up residence in the Met in a light-hearted way. 

The narrative frame is the manuscript that Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (a wealthy Connecticut widow) sends to her lawyer Saxonberg to amend her will.  Within this narrative, we narrow in to Claudia's perspective as she enlists her younger brother in her plan to run away.  Most of the book is told in Claudia's narrative voice with occasional interjections from the unseen Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler character. 

The tale itself is charming.  The young characters do not effect a miraculous change in themselves by the end of the story, but they change enough to make it believable as a narrative that could have happened.

If you've missed this one, you should definitely pick it up.