#e.l. konigsburg

[e-b-reads]

@therefugeofbooks tagged me forever ago to make a poll with my five favorite books for others to vote on, and it's taken until now because choosing five favorites is so hard!

seen several of these lately so I'm not sure who has and hasn't done this! Non-obligatory tags (and of course you all may also have already done this): @beardedbookdragon, @gardenforsparrows, @tinynavajoreads

Plus as always, if I didn't tag you and you want to do it, make a poll anyway and tag me so I see it!

[agmagazinescans]

Who's That Girl? E.L. Konigsburg

American Girl Magazine, July/August 1998

[Ko-Fi Donations]

[lostography]

I wanted something to happen, but I wanted it to be...oh, I don't know...I wanted it to be something that just happened, not something I made happen.

E.L. Konigsburg, Silent to the Bone

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

A Few Fun Facts About 'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' & Its Author

We weren't surprised that the children's classic The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler came out on top in the 2023 edition of NYPL's #LiteraryMarchMadness. Written by E.L. Konigsburg and published in 1967, it has been beloved by generations of children (and adults) and has never been out of print. 

[bookcoversonly]

Title: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler | Author: E.L. Konigsburg | Publisher: Atheneum Books (2007)

[slowtides]

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 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.

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

[everythingiread]

The postman hardly looked puzzled. People working at the Grand Central Post Office grow used to strange remarks. They hear so many. They never stop hearing them; they simply stop sending the messages to their brains. Like talking into a telephone with no one on the receiver end.

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

[novelsforhungrypeople]

Claudia read the paper while they ate breakfast at Horn and Hardart's. That morning she didn't eat breakfast food for breakfast. Crackers and roasted chestnuts in bed at night satisfied only a small corner of her hunger. Being hungry was the most inconvenient part of running away. She meant to eat heartily for every cent Jami gave her. She bought macaroni and cheese casserole, baked beans, and coffee that morning. Jamie got the same.

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

[newberyandchai]

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1968)

Jim: What are you reading? Abby: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Jim: Best book. Abby: Yeah, but I've read it before. Jim: So have I. Hey, question: If you had to spend the night in the Met or the aquarium, which would it be? Abby: Definitely the aquarium. Jim: Definitely. Yes. Glad you said that. You don't wanna help me with some of my sales, do you? 'Cause I'm kind of swamped. Abby: Sure.

It's the most mundane Office quote to devote any brainpower to remembering (although my name popped up, which is a plus), but this was my only exposure to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler before picking it up at the bookstore in the kids' section a few months ago. I thought it might be one of those amazing, fast-paced mysteries that involved a group of quirky kids getting trapped in a museum or an aquarium, somehow chancing upon a crime taking place and catching the criminals before any police have a chance to get involved... but nope.

This was a really boring book and I didn't like it.

...I could stop there, but since my last post didn't include any kind of synopsis of the book in question, here you go: A very young girl decides to run away from home with one of her brothers and hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art until she teaches a lesson to her parents in appreciating her more. The siblings aren't discovered by anyone for several days, which leads to very exciting descriptions of bathing in the museum fountain and hiding in public restrooms while the security guards do their nightly rounds. They sleep in a centuries-old bed and buy food from the nearby automat (if that gives you any idea of the timeframe) and are constantly worried about how many cents they're spending on food and transportation, etc.

But to get to the meat of the story, the girl quickly becomes interested in determining whether a new statue supposedly by Michaelangelo is really an original or a fake. They follow some "clues" and write to the museum, but they receive an unsatisfactory answer in the P.O. box they rent for this specific purpose. In the end, they visit a (slightly rude) rich old lady outside the city who gives them an hour to look through her file cabinets to find out the truth about the statue's origin.

Without spoiling the ending (although I'm sure you can probably guess how everything turned out), it was disappointing. There wasn't any kind of antagonist aside from budgeting concerns, which is hard to take seriously these days when they're talking about the difference between 16 and 20 cents. Something about knowing they're sleeping in an extremely ancient bed that someone was murdered in freaked me out a little, too, and it didn't seem thrilling so much as stressful.

There was a bit at the very end about needing to have a secret -- how knowledge that no one else knows transforms you, even if no one else knows. Claudia (the main character) is desperate to know the truth about the statue because it will make her exciting and important, which is something she doesn't feel at home.

"Returning with a secret is what [Claudia] really wants. [The statue] had a secret and that made her exciting, important. Claudia doesn't want adventure. She likes baths and feeling comfortable too much for that kind of thing. Secrets are the kind of adventure she needs. Secrets are safe, and they do much to make you different. On the inside where it counts."

I'm not sure I entirely agree. The thing about secrets (or maybe a better word in this context is the truth) is that people can choose to see them as lies that sad people concoct for all kinds of pitiable reasons. Lies are (among many other reasons) sometimes created to make people feel important when they don't have anything exciting to share or contribute (I'm thinking of a certain someone saying something along the lines of boasting to be able to solve the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office...).

I think the book's quote insinuates that if you know your secret is real, that's what gives you your own sense of value — but deep inside the adult side of my brain, I think I might be too concerned with the believability aspect. If something unbelievable (or even extremely believable) is true, but everyone else believes it's a lie... is it really true? (Inside the current political landscape of the U.S., it appears even reality is debatable.)

And I'm pretty bad at keeping secrets as it is, so never tell me about any surprise parties.

I would rate this book a 5/10 and Unrecommendable. It did not meet my expectations and went from being very practical (how to very practically and frugally live in a museum for a few days) to more abstract (~secrets change you~) in ways that didn't add up to a satisfactory ending for me.

Your mileage may vary.

[dettiot]

Oh, man, what a perfect reference, though!

I was talking to my husband about the Trump documents case and how many places they found document: boxes, storage rooms, his literal desk.

Me: “It’s like some Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler shit.”

Hubs: “…”

Me: “Maybe that’s an EL Konigsburg deep cut.”

Hubs: “…Okay.”

🤣

[e-b-reads]

Not Your Classics Challenge

day 29: The Joy Luck Club

A book about generations, and the impacts and interactions between.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

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.

[naranjapetrificada]

Happy WIP Wednesday!

I didn't share anything last time because Chapter 2 had just gone up, but today I've got a little something from Chapter 3* for you:

There's such a strong resemblance between the Teach siblings that, without being told, Stede could easily have guessed that the two smiling women in front of the fire were Edward's sisters. To the left is the one who stepped forward earlier to accept his party's diplomatic credentials, and from this close he can see that her eyes are actually a much lighter shade of brown than Edward's. She wears a finely draped sapphire blue coat in a style that seems to be popular here, with the collar and trumpet sleeves trimmed in vair. Dressed similarly in scarlet and miniver, the woman on the right has a slightly rounder face than her sister, ringlets to Edward's waves, and the darkest eyes of all three.

Describing clothes is still very new to me, given that most of my fiction writing history has been short, image-heavy stuff written with the poet part of my brain, but I'm trying. It's weird and easy to do badly!

*I can't foresee circumstances where this bit gets pushed back again but you truly never know with characters as unhinged as Ed and Stede.

[holdoncallfailed]

most formative fictional media btw. these all changed my psychology/personality in very specific and permanent ways

[pixiedustandpetrichor]

E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler || underscored, this is a story about wolves || @chloegoround || serendipitysirius, perfectly normal || @stardustandvanilla