I read a lot when I was young. My fear of the dark lasted way longer than necessary because my parents let me keep a giant "night light" in my bunk bed that I used as a reading lamp. I think I was in 5th grade when I read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.Konigsburg. What a great book. This is one of those books where I can still vividly picture most of the scenes. Unlike the book I'm writing about for the overrated post, this is a book I connected with. A young girl who is tired of her family, bored with her life, and wants an adventure.
The main character of the book is Claudia, a girl who wants to run away. She decides the perfect place to run away to is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She realizes she doesn't have enough money to do it, so she convinces her only sibling that saves his money, her younger brother, Jamie, to come along with her. Claudia is methodical and plans their escape in great detail. To an adult it seems far-fetched, but to a 5th grader it makes perfect sense. They manage to make it an entire week in the museum, bathing in a fountain, sleeping in antique beds, and hiding in the bathrooms around closing time. They even manage to solve a mystery about a sculpture that may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo.
I love this book. There is fantasy surrounding Claudia's scheme to run away, but there is enough reality to make it relatable. I don't think it would ever make a child actually run away, it just makes the fantasy of imagining "what if?" fun and entertaining.
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