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 $250. 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.
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!
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
light and pleasing but not teasing:
Two siblings, a boy and a girl, run away from home and hide in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, where they become involved in trying to find out whether a new statue was the work of Michelangelo. In the end they do find out by talking to the person who sold the statue to the museum.
So there you have it: easy to read, easy to summarize, pleasing and somewhat diverting. It's no brain teaser, though, it didn't really draw me in, I didn't feel captivated by the language or the story - I cared what... more info
Just ew:
I had to read this in 5th grade and it was torture throughout. The story was good but the way it was written gave no true human reactions and it was a normal book with a weird displaced mistery put into it.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler:
I received 8 of 10 individual orders of this used novel within a few days and the other two before the deadline. The quality of the novels was overall good - perfect covers and very slight yellowing. I had one query from a vendor for which I received a prompt reply from the vendor and from Amazon. I'm very satisfied.
If I'd Read This Book Forty Years Ago...:
As I child I would have wanted to be Claudia: brave enough to run away, worldly enough to live in a museum, and smart enough to figure out the "cupid" mystery. But having read it only a few days ago, as an adult, I'd like to have written some of lines author E.L. Konigsburg attributed to her narrator Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Here are two examples: "Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around." "...Some days you must... more info
