Lo de la medalla Newbery es o libros con historias muy chulas o libros realmente mediocres como éste que te hacen preguntarte por qué la ganaron.

Second reading, 2022: I read this out loud to my fiancé, who had never read it. I couldn’t remember much about it, but I really enjoyed it. It’s smart, funny, and well written. I thought there had been more of a focus on the files themselves, but they don’t come in till the end. I was probably confused as a kid trying to figure out how they were organized.

I've been a reader my whole life, but until fourth grade I was mostly reading Baby Sitter's Club books and the Box Car Children series. My fourth grade teacher knew I could read at a higher level, and the Mixed-Up Files was the first book that she suggested I read. Since then, the book has been a kind of symbol for me, for my love of reading good stories and my true entrance into the world of reading. It was completely unlike anything I'd read before and has probably been one of the most important books in my life.

Alright, here we go with another book from my past that was forced down my throat by the bare hands of an english teacher. I hated this book so much that I decided to just not read it and struggle my way through that time of the year.

After arriving to school the morning after i decided that, i panicked! The current chapter that was to be discussed abruptly fell into the lesson plans of the teacher that morning and i began to panick. I glanced around at the obedient students who plucked out their copies of this book from their backpacks and immediately turned to the desired chapter.

I suddenly felt ashamed for being stupid and not at least glazing over the chapter (i was an obedient student at heart...really! i was just getting tired of being forced to read books that didn't interest me).

So i quickly began devising a way to get myself through that day of discussion. I decided upon just excusing myself to the bathroom with my book in my shirt. I remember taking a stall and quickly rummaging through the awful chapter while carefully watching the clock.

Oh I struggled my way through the semester book projects and summer readings. I survived, but barely came through unscathed.

If you are familiar with my other book ratings of books that i hated as a child, then you could probably guess all that i would say about this book. Here are the basics: hated it, don't recommend it, i was young so you never know the true review of this book for i could read it now and actually enjoy it! and then of course the forever mentionings of the evil summer reading and class book projects.

3.5

A childhood favourite :)

"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 of 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."

Here's a book that's lost none of its charm. Siblings Claudia and Jamie run away together and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a week, uncovering a Michelangelo-related mystery and, along the way, learning a few things about family, grammar, and the joy of knowing secrets.

"New York is a great city to hide out. No one notices no one."

Like all the best children's books, its example is disgraceful. The two children have only the dimmest sense of the panic they've thrown their parents into; they break into a museum repeatedly; and they cheerfully throw backpacks into sarcophagi and sleep in historically valuable beds. They also steal. Children who follow their advice will be very bad children. In addition, it's logistically improbable that any of this would work.

"Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home."

But for engendering a sense of the mystery and magic of art, and a sense of adventure, it is exemplary. And it's a wonderful New York book, no less today than it was in 1967.

"If you think of doing something in New York City, you can be certain that at least two thousand other people have that same thought. And of the two thousand who do, about one thousand will be standing in line waiting to do it."

Which is why I don't do brunch.

3.5 Stars

I used to love this book as a kid- the story of two siblings who run away and stay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was so magical to me. I'm happy to say it still holds up as an adult. I can't wait to read this to my girls when they're a bit older.

So, what exactly would be the category for lingering behind and taking up residence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? I'll go with criminal trespass till I learn otherwise. So - when I commit criminal trespass, should I blame Thomas Hoving, or E.L. Konigsburg? I recently finished False Impressions, and just finished From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, so I'm already making plans. Enough time has gone by since the publication of the book - 1967 - that the guards must have gotten out of the habit of checking the bathroom stalls quite so thoroughly, so there's no reason I can't use the same ruse to stay in the museum overnight. Let's see ... They say in the preface to the book that the fountain that used to be in the restaurant (which I believe has been moved) is now in Georgia, but there is one called the Pan Fountain - oh, and the reflecting pool around the Temple of Dendur, of course, of which seventy-five cents of the change in the water is mine anyway.

Oh, and in place of the fictional Angel of the book which may or may not have been "sculptured" by Michelangelo, there is Young Archer, which may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo. It's karma.

I will run away - taking the train; I'll pop for a taxi, and use the method Claudia and Jamie did to infiltrate and entrench myself into the museum. I don't know about sleeping in one of the antique beds, though; that seems a little squicky. And fragile. (And why would it be made up with sheets and all?) There must be an employee lunch room or something, or an administrative office with a couch or something. I'll figure it out.

So let's see. I don't have an instrument case like the kids who run away hid their socks and underwear in - but I have a pretty big pocketbook. And I don't have to check it. Hm. The laptop is probably not viable; I could charge it, but unless they have WiFi - well, I could use the time to finish the book.

The Mixed-Up Files is wonderful. I may not (may not) go through with this plan, but it's a really fun fantasy. It hit me hard because of all my reading about the Met lately - Hoving talks a lot about living with the art, about handling and having personal experience of it, and - - it's just mean. It's something I crave, and something I'll never have (unless I implement Plan E.L. Konigsberg) - the idea of having the whole of the Met to myself for the better part of every day is ... heady. Especially the part shown on the cover of this edition - the Arms and Armor hall. I love that place.



Except for those pesky alarms and sensors and such. The sixties were such a sweetly innocent time. And the kids in this book are sweetly innocent, and so very smart; it's a pleasure to be in on the planning and execution of such a great plan. The pen and ink illustrations in the edition I read were horrible - muddy, almost more inkblots than illustrations; they have to have been copies of copies of larger images. But the writing was great fun, despite the point of view of an adult added to a couple of years of watching Criminal Minds and Without a Trace making the kids' parents' terror a little more important to me than to the kids, but that's okay. The detailed money calculations were ... startling. I don't know why I never read the book when I was a kid, but I'm glad I did now.

And I really, really want to go hang out with the Young Archer.

One of the first books from the effervescent mind of the great E.L. Konigsburg, this novel stands up as well today as it did when it was first published.
Populated by strong, independent characters as in all of the author's stories, this book follows an interesting story thread of both unique survival and a pressing mystery, as Claudia and her brother hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Attempting to keep one step ahead of the police and their parents is not an easy task, but ultimately it matters mostly because Claudia ran away for a reason that she does not fully understand, and it is important for her to find that reason before going back with her parents.
"From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" is unforgettable, and peppered (especially close to the end) with E.L. Konigsburg's trademark nuggets of priceless wisdom, interwoven perfectly with the text as always.
One of my favorite features about this particular edition of the book is the miniature sequel to be found in the back. Apparently, E.L. Konigsburg wrote and used this sequel when accepting the 1968 Newbery Medal for "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler". It is a pithy and funny addendum. :-)

I very vaguely remember this one from childhood, so I thought why not read it again? It's a fun story about two children who run away and live in an art museum. There's a mystery as well, with them trying to figure out whether or not a new obtained statue was sculpted by Michelangelo himself. Original story, fun for kids.

My end-of-2008 nostalgia continued with this, a dear childhood favorite, and it's not particularly hard to see why--isn't hiding for a week at the Met and solving a Michelangelo-centered mystery a fantasy of every artistically-minded child? (It certainly was mine.) And in hindsight I can see how much Claudia was in myself at that age, the yearning to "grow up" ASAP, the intense desire to be seen as preternaturally special--isn't it interesting how wrapped up in the pages of a book one sometimes stumbles upon a time capsule of a former self?

"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 of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of 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."

the mc had such a "main-character-complex" like she RAN AWAY WHAT A DRAMATIC CHILD-