While visiting my friend and fellow bibliophile Susan back in May, part of our time included visiting a couple of bookstores, including a great used bookstore in downtown Fredericksburg called Riverby Books. It’s a wonderful place to browse and wander the shelves, looking for old favorites or discovering some hidden gems. I had to keep in mind that I only had a carry-on bag and used that excuse as a reason not to go overboard (but next time I go, I’m packing fewer clothes). I did come away with a few goodies though, including a copy of Tipping the Velvet, to replace the one I’d lent to someone and never got back; Very Good, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse, an author I’ve been meaning to read forever and maybe now I actually will; and The Box Garden by Carol Shields because for some reason, I feel compelled to collect her books. (Don’t marvel at my restraint just yet: I bought a few more books during my trip but they were at other bookstores.)

Susan and I were sharing our finds with one another as we are wont to do, and one of hers was a children’s book called  From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. She was quite surprised that I’d never heard of the book, let alone read it, as it was one of her favorites as a child. She insisted that I read it and find out what I’d been missing all these years. Well, it was near the end of her trip and so I didn’t get the time to read her copy before we returned home, but I was able to check out a copy from my library. The book hasn’t changed much over the years; our new library copy has the same artwork as the worn and well-read copy that Susan now owns.

The book, which is much loved by countless others besides Susan, is the story of two school-age children, ostensibly written by Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler to her lawyer, Saxonberg. Claudia is a young girl living in Connecticut, tired of her normal life and wanting something different, an adventure. But Claudia being who she is, carefully plans her adventure, strategically including one of her brothers, Jamie, in her scheme, since he has money and is a notorious tightwad. Her plan is to run away to New York City and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two embark on their grand adventure, and theirs is the stuff that childhood dreams are made of. They sleep on the beds of royalty, bathe in a fountain, and roam the museum by night. It’s during one of these explorations that they discover the statue of the mysterious Angel, claimed to be created by by Michelango although no one knows for sure. (Or do they?) Claudia decides that solving the mystery of the Angel is the key to their adventure, the whole point of their running away, and that she and Jamie must find out the truth about the statue before they can return home. And so they do.

This is arguably one of the best children’s books out there, and my only complaint is that I didn’t discover it sooner, when I could have more realistically put myself in Claudia’s shoes and lived vicariously through her escapades. From the Mixed-Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler should be given to every child to read; to do otherwise is to cheat them out of a fabulous book about the wonders – and wonderment – of childhood.