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

e.l. konigsburg

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Winner of the 1968 Newbery Medal

When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would go in comfort - she would live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She saved her money, and she invited her brother Jamie to go, mostly because he was a miser and would have money.

Claudia was a good organizer and Jamie had some ideas, too; so the two took up residence at the museum right on schedule. But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems: She felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the Museum so beautiful she could not go home until she had discovered its maker, a question that baffled the experts, too.

The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Without her - well, without her, Claudia might never have found a way to go home.

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1967
Literary awards
newbery medal, lewis carroll shelf award, vermont golden dome book award, william allen white childrens book award, 
Places
new york city new york, connecticut, metropolitan museum of art, manhattan new york city new york, 

This edition

Format
159 pages, Paperback
Published
June 2, 2003 by Gardners Books
ISBN
9780744583274
ASIN
0744583276
Language
English
Characters More characters

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About the author

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e.l. konigsburg

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Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was an American writer and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is one of six writers to win two Newbery Medals, the venerable American Library Association award for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."
Konigsburg submitted her first two manuscripts to editor Jean E. Karl at Atheneum Publishers in 1966, and both were published in 1967: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the 1968 Newbery Medal, and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was listed as a runner-up in the same year, making Konigsburg the only author to win the Newbery Medal and have another book listed as runner-up in the same year. She won again for The View from Saturday in 1997, 29 years later, the longest span between two Newberys awarded to one author.
For her contribution as a children's writer Konigsburg was U.S. nominee in 2006 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 98 votes)
5 stars
36(37%)
4 stars
28(29%)
3 stars
34(35%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
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98 reviews All reviews
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Shinji_Kenshin
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, but she is not the one to run away without a plan, and she is not the one to run to the woods. It is too dirty, too hard, and she has some classy dreams. She decides to take her brother Jamie (yes, she did consider her other brothers, but decided that they are not right for this). And now, with a plan, she tells her brother that they are running away on Wednesday. Why Wednesday? since it is band day, and you will find Claudia's plan enchanting and really smart.
To her luck, or smart choice, she find out that Jamie is rich. He has a lot of money that will help the two of them in the running away plan, She slips an envelope in the snail mail to tell her parents about the running away, and that please they should not worry or call the FBI. And off they go, on their way to New York, to hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oh, yeah, this is Claudia Kincaid for you. Hiding in an sixteenth century luxury bed.

The fist half was outstanding. I loved it and it was a true five stars fun and bold. I started liking it a bit less when the two kids got into solving the museum mystery of the angel sculpture. So that part was a bit more 3 stars for me.

Overall, it is a really great book. And it is great to go back to read children's books. Highly recommended. 4 stars.
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iamDragoncat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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As a child this was so boring I fell asleep while hearing it read out loud more than once.
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Trixy18
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Well I've never read an actually good book winning the Newbery Medal and this was no exception. They might as well call it the Mediocre Medal of Children's Literature, (not considering the disturbingly large number of books which don't even live up to that.)
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Arariel
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Here's a little sample of why I enjoyed this book so much...

Claudia: But, Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum.

"No," I answered, "I don't agree with that. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow".


A fun story--great read-aloud with the boys. Of course, I want to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC--and throw coins in the fountain!
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APHpoland
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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My granddaughter liked it, I found it dated and confusing until the end. The spirit of adventure, curiosity, and resourcefulness was what saved the story from just being totally mixed-up.
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kateXeee
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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I enjoyed this one more than the kids, it's an odd little book. The central story does capture the imagination of a child like few can, but the trappings are so fussy and odd. I think the narrative device (the titular Mrs. Frankweiler has a first-person narration) confused the kids, and I don't think they really connected with the themes of secrets and adventure. There are some very complex ideas here. But all those things work beautifully for adults and after you read it as a child all those things fall away and you just remember the magic.

I related to this book as a child, myself the oldest of four children in a house that was too loud for my liking. Claudia is a stickler and so was I. Neither of my children is much like Claudia, though, and it's that specific personality type that is this book's ideal reader.

In fact, I may be this book's ideal reader right now, as an adult who remembers it fondly. On the other hand, the kids loved the stuff about the museum and I wished we still lived close by so they could see it.
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Jactumn
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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An absolutely wonderful book. This is the story of a sister and brother who run away from home because the girl is victim to family injustices. They run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they encounter The Angel by Michelangelo. I just love the concept of 'coming home lost'. Do yourself a favor and read this and capture the thrill of being twelve years old again.
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berry_mars
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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In The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, A.J. tells his daughter: “The things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.”

I think maybe that was my problem with From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Had I read it as a kid - perhaps in 4th or 5th grade - I think it's very likely that my 10-year-old imagination would have run wild with glee at the thought of running away from home to live in a museum. Perhaps Claudia and Jamie Kincaid would have been my literary heroes.

But at the far more pragmatic age of 41, all I could think as I read this book was how freaking sick with worry!!! their parents must have been after two of their kids disappeared without a trace for an entire week. I know… I'm no fun.

Also… well, I just plain didn't like Claudia. She was an entitled, manipulative, thoroughly self-absorbed little brat. I kept hoping some personal growth on her part might salvage the story in the end, but it was not meant to be. In fact, when confronted with the fact that her family was frantic over her and her brother's disappearance, Claudia's only response was, "But I wrote them a letter!" That was more or less when I gave up and accepted that this would, in all likelihood, be a one-star read. Even the eventual introduction of the titular Basil E. Frankweiler, with her sage insights and poignant perspectives on life and people that appealed to my pragmatically boring self, couldn't sway me, despite being a welcome change from all of Claudia's screeching and a narrative that had otherwise grown rather monotonous. Besides, it all went over Claudia's head anyway. (Jamie, for his part, was more tolerable, if irritatingly precocious for an 8-year-old.)

I read this book aloud to my daughter (age 7) and it seemed as lost on her as it was on me, albeit for different reasons. While she followed the basic plot, some of the subject matter pertaining to art history was a little over her head. Not really an issue since it provided for good discussion; however, she also had trouble following the narrative at times. But honestly? So did I… leading me to believe that perhaps it was an issue of writing style and not reading comprehension skills. She gave it two stars.

Then again, give it a few more years and she may respond differently.
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