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melodier93 's review for:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E.L. Konigsburg
I love this book. Love, love, love it, deep in my bones and beyond criticism, have loved it for as long as I can remember. I love its delightfully long name, love its weird unpretty illustrations, love its witty narrator and steadfast insistence that children can comprehend and are interested in big ideas about art and knowledge and identity and wonder. I don't know when I first read it - I know it was a gift from my dad, who had a habit of bringing home books with medals on the cover before I was officially old enough to read them. In the case of Bridge to Terabithia, this was devastating. In the case of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, it was magical.
I once read an essay that pointed out that so many protagonists of children's literature are orphans because it frees the children to have adventures without worrying about the parents back home missing them, or having adults intervene to save them from danger. Harry Potter is an orphan, as are the Boxcar Children. When children are not directly orphaned, the plot usually intervenes to temporarily strand them regardless - the Pevensies are sent to the country because of the air-raids, and their separation from their parents combined with a neat bit of time dilation allows them to fight wars and save Narnia without every once worrying their parents. This is not so of this book, which gleefully allows its children to run away from home without a thought for their parents' fear and distress, and spares the reader from directly having to confront Mr. and Mrs. Kincaids' trauma. As it should be.
Another reviewer has commented, rightly, that all the best children's books feature children behaving in ways that adults would not want young readers to emulate. The fantasy of childhood is the ability to go and have adventures with total certainty that home will be there, safe and loving and the same, when you return. This is the fantasy of Where the Wild Things Are, of Peter Pan, and, of course, of FTMUFOMBEF (phew, even typing out the initials is exhausting!). Reading this novel as a child, I related deeply to Claudia's desire to do something important and mysterious, as well as her desire to run away to somewhere comfortable and beautiful instead of dirty and uncomfortable: the desire to be glamorous and have a secret and an adventure, but to do so with the romance and style your everyday existence lacks. As a kid I remember loving the museum setting, dreaming about how I would live if I escaped to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which I visited often with my own parents. I marveled at how cheaply the kids lived, having an unclear understanding of money but definitely knowing that I could no longer buy a hot fudge sundae for 35 cents. And, along with Jamie and Claudia, I definitely believed that there was the possibility that I could solve a 450 year old art mystery that baffled the critics.
I relistened to the novel as an audiobook this past week, for the first time in at least 15 years, and I was delighted and charmed again. The audiobook was narrated by an older lady who imbues Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's narration with warmth and dry humor. In a way I did not understand as a kid, I now appreciate this odd framing narrative, and the choice to provide our child protagonists with the wisdom and perspective of a much older (but still mischievous and curious) person. She is the Professor Kirk of the novel, winsomely engaging with the children as equals while also teaching them blunt lessons about how the world works. I am nowhere close to being Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler yet, but I am no longer Claudia, either, and I found myself looking at Claudia and Jamie's adventures more through her lens - with amusement and joy at their observations and innovations, but also with recognition. Much like Claudia, I was a smart, privileged kid who nonetheless felt a profound desire to do something important and be changed - and my younger brother was a bit of a cheapskate who loved (and still does love) roughing it. We fought, but also often appreciated each other's humor and wit. He would have made an excellent partner for running away to the Met with.
This is, at its heart, a book about curiosity, and independence, and starting to understand who you want to become as you stand on the threshold between childhood and adulthood, and it remains one of the most perfect works of children's literature of all time.
I once read an essay that pointed out that so many protagonists of children's literature are orphans because it frees the children to have adventures without worrying about the parents back home missing them, or having adults intervene to save them from danger. Harry Potter is an orphan, as are the Boxcar Children. When children are not directly orphaned, the plot usually intervenes to temporarily strand them regardless - the Pevensies are sent to the country because of the air-raids, and their separation from their parents combined with a neat bit of time dilation allows them to fight wars and save Narnia without every once worrying their parents. This is not so of this book, which gleefully allows its children to run away from home without a thought for their parents' fear and distress, and spares the reader from directly having to confront Mr. and Mrs. Kincaids' trauma. As it should be.
Another reviewer has commented, rightly, that all the best children's books feature children behaving in ways that adults would not want young readers to emulate. The fantasy of childhood is the ability to go and have adventures with total certainty that home will be there, safe and loving and the same, when you return. This is the fantasy of Where the Wild Things Are, of Peter Pan, and, of course, of FTMUFOMBEF (phew, even typing out the initials is exhausting!). Reading this novel as a child, I related deeply to Claudia's desire to do something important and mysterious, as well as her desire to run away to somewhere comfortable and beautiful instead of dirty and uncomfortable: the desire to be glamorous and have a secret and an adventure, but to do so with the romance and style your everyday existence lacks. As a kid I remember loving the museum setting, dreaming about how I would live if I escaped to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, which I visited often with my own parents. I marveled at how cheaply the kids lived, having an unclear understanding of money but definitely knowing that I could no longer buy a hot fudge sundae for 35 cents. And, along with Jamie and Claudia, I definitely believed that there was the possibility that I could solve a 450 year old art mystery that baffled the critics.
I relistened to the novel as an audiobook this past week, for the first time in at least 15 years, and I was delighted and charmed again. The audiobook was narrated by an older lady who imbues Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler's narration with warmth and dry humor. In a way I did not understand as a kid, I now appreciate this odd framing narrative, and the choice to provide our child protagonists with the wisdom and perspective of a much older (but still mischievous and curious) person. She is the Professor Kirk of the novel, winsomely engaging with the children as equals while also teaching them blunt lessons about how the world works. I am nowhere close to being Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler yet, but I am no longer Claudia, either, and I found myself looking at Claudia and Jamie's adventures more through her lens - with amusement and joy at their observations and innovations, but also with recognition. Much like Claudia, I was a smart, privileged kid who nonetheless felt a profound desire to do something important and be changed - and my younger brother was a bit of a cheapskate who loved (and still does love) roughing it. We fought, but also often appreciated each other's humor and wit. He would have made an excellent partner for running away to the Met with.
This is, at its heart, a book about curiosity, and independence, and starting to understand who you want to become as you stand on the threshold between childhood and adulthood, and it remains one of the most perfect works of children's literature of all time.