Every time I reread From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I wonder two things:
– How many kids have the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art had to kick out of bathroom stalls near closing time since this book was published? Have any ever managed to stay the night? Would anyone at the museum actually tell me this, if I asked?
– Why on earth didn’t I ever try to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a kid? I wanted to run away, but I didn’t quite know how to go about doing it–and here were detailed, practical running-away instructions. Was I not interested enough in museums? Did it not occur to me that I could take the Long Island Railroad from my own home town as easily as Claudia and James Kincaid took the train from Connecticut?
With all the security and kid-watching both that are part of the world now, it seems it’d be a bit harder to slip through the cracks and into a museum now than it was then. Yet we need those cracks; everyone needs to be able to go places no one is watching once in a while, to have adventures that aren’t entirely shared. None of which keeps my from finding this as delightful a book now as I did when I first discovered it, through a school reading assignment, of all things. Maybe it only makes it more so. Even the most rule-abiding kids–the sort of kids who would never run away for themselves–can slip through the cracks when they’re reading. “The other part is–I think the other part is–that if I tell, then I know for sure that my adventure is over. And I don’t want it to be over until I’m sure I’ve had enough.”
“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you.”