From the Bookshelf of Arrangement and Description: Archivists At Large…

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

E.L. Konigsburg

Why we're reading this: Two children have to solve a mystery by doing research in eccentrically organized files
[close] Two children have to solve a mystery by doing research in eccentrically organized files

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Dec 05, 2024 QNPoohBear rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: middle-grades, historical-fiction

This was a fun reread! I didn't remember anything about this book except for the Met Museum! OMG living inside a museum for a week would be a dream come true! Is this supposed to be a pseudo-fantasy or did museums really not have much security back in the 60s? The small museum where I worked had more security than than two random guards walking around all night. I cringed at Claudia and Jamie sleeping on the historic beds. NO! Those are ARTIFACTS! You don't touch artifacts! Wouldn't security kno This was a fun reread! I didn't remember anything about this book except for the Met Museum! OMG living inside a museum for a week would be a dream come true! Is this supposed to be a pseudo-fantasy or did museums really not have much security back in the 60s? The small museum where I worked had more security than than two random guards walking around all night. I cringed at Claudia and Jamie sleeping on the historic beds. NO! Those are ARTIFACTS! You don't touch artifacts! Wouldn't security know someone had sat or lay down in the beds when they came around in the morning? I think this story is supposed to be a bit of a fantasy.

I really enjoyed the mystery and got caught up in it. I had to know the truth, like Claudia. Again though, this is a fantasy version of the Met. I doubt a museum would purchase and display an object without knowing the provenance! Even if they purchased a suspected Michaelangelo, they'd research it before putting it on display.

I can relate a lot to Claudia's feelings of being underappreciated and wanting to come back feeling different, somehow. I can also relate to her need to know something and wanting to research all she can before she moves on. Like Claudia, I would need my comforts and routine even while living in a museum. I also relate to Jamie because he's the practical one and manages their money. I was uncomfortable with the fact the kids stole money from the fountain at the museum. Museums don't run themselves, even big ones like the Met, and rely on donations. Plus, stealing! Jamie is only 9 and his cavalier attitude is to be expected but Claudia, at 12, is old enough to know stealing is stealing. Mrs. Frankweiler's acerbic voice would not have appealed to me when I first read this as a young teen. I like her now, as an adult. She sounds a lot like me. I didn't like how her narrative was framed as letters to her lawyer and the random surprise at the end was weird and irrelevant to the plot.

This edition is illustrated and I fully expect the book to be banned from certain schools and libraries due to one illustration of the children bathing in the museum fountain. I do question the illustrator's choice. SO FAR, the book has been challenged because some parents fear it might encourage their children to run away. Clearly those parents didn't read the book or understand Claudia's reasons for wanting to run away. The challenge and subsequent fictional ban is the subject of Ban This Book. I wouldn't blame Amy, the heroine of Gratz's novel and understand why she loves the book so much! ...more

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Sep 28, 2018 Jessi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, _2018, childhood

Claudia makes a plan to run away. She's feeling overburdened and underappreciated. She decides that she will take the middle of her younger brothers with her (he's got money).
The two of them successfully sneak into the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Claudia becomes enraptured by the new angel statue, one thought to be possibly sculpted by Michaelangelo. Her life goal immediately becomes to find out whether or not it is true.

I forgot how much I loved this book. I also forgot that this was actu ...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Camille rated it liked it

Shelves: childrens

I'm giving this book a 3 because I love the premise of it, but Claudia was such a twit that it made me not want to even read it. I was really disappointed by this, but I still liked the story. ...more

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