From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by EL Konigsburg, 168pp RL 5

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler written and illustrated by the amazingly gifted EL Konigsburg is the stand-out book from my childhood.  It is the book that left a lasting impression on me as an eleven year old and sparked (or maybe fueled an already existing) love for stories that unfold in and are shaped by New York City.  I am sure this explains my adolescent obsession with JD Salinger and the handful of books he authored.  Or, maybe this fascination really begins with my father, who grew up on Long Island and, when I pried hard enough, would tell me a little bit about his childhood there and visits to NYC.  As a fourth generation (Southern) Californian, this all sounded so exotic, enthralling, intellectual and arty to me as a child.  After all, Claudia decided to run away to it because it was "elegant;  it was important;  and busy."  I don't know if I was thoughtful enough to long for an experience that would leave me different the way Claudia Kincaid did, but I was restless and anxious enough for new experiences and also always looking for a way to stand out among my peers, so much so that I was intrigued by Claudia, Jamie and their adventure.  

If Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had be published when I was ten or eleven, I have no doubt that I would have been consumed with it (even more so than I am as an adult.) As it was, I was a reader in a world of children's literature where there were no series that told one story over the course of several books.  That's not entirely true.  I read the superb, semi-autobiographical  Great Brain (sorry for the link to Wikipedia but it was the best reference I could find) series that I wish more people knew of and I began Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet that starts with A Wrinkle in Time, written in 1962 and winner of the Newbery Award the following year.  And, while Meg Murry left a lasting impression on me with her mousy appearance and bad temper, unheard of in girl characters even thirty years ago, my parents weren't scientists and would never discover a tesseract that would carry me to different dimensions.  But, like Claudia, there was a remote chance that I could run away and hide out in a museum.  And I did have a younger brother who was stingy.  While fantasy writing for children was mostly dormant during my childhood, the visits that Claudia and Jamie made to Horn and Hardart's Automat in NYC were as magical to me as anything found in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry today.  If you and your kids are interested in automats, visit this amazing site that is affiliated with Storycorps, an independent, non-profit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening and can be heard on nrp.org, to listen to a Sound Portrait of the last day of operation for Horn & Hardart's on April 9, 1991.

Reading and writing about this book today, I am tempted to label it a fantasy considering the ways in which our world has changed in the forty plus years since it was first published in 1967. If you have never read this book, I highly recommend you seek out the 35th Anniversary edition with an afterword (because, as she says, she never reads forwards until after she has finished reading a book) by EL Konigsburg reflecting upon the changes in the world and NYC since she wrote her book.  There is also an interesting aside about an incident in 1995 that has amazing similarities to Konigsburg's book, written almost thirty years earlier.  The basic plot of the story follows twelve-year old Claudia Kincaid who, feeling unappreciated and undervalued by her parents, decides to run away.  Being a thoughtful, particular child with specific ideas about the ways in which things should be done, she decides to bring her nine-year old brother Jamie along because he "could be counted on to be quiet, and now and then he was good for a laugh.  Besides, he was rich."  Her meager allowance, one of her main reasons for running away, combined with her love of hot fudge sundaes, has left Claudia without the funds she needs to carry out her plan.  Jamie is good at saving money and Claudia knows he will keep her from squandering their combined savings.

Claudia plans their adventure with an mature preciseness.  She has thought through how the children will pack their supplies (instrument cases) where they will stay (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was free in 1967) and how they will go unnoticed while there (hide in the bathroom stalls - feet up - at opening and closing time and joining touring school groups during the day so as to go unnoticed while roaming the museum.)  This in and of itself could take up 162 pages, but Konigsburg adds another layer to the story.  While Claudia and Jamie are hiding out at the Met, a new exhibit draws record crowds.  The museum has acquired at auction for the low, even in 1967, price of $225, a marble sculpture that may have been sculpted by Michelangelo.  Claudia decides that solving the mystery of this statue, referred to as Angel, will be the thing that allows her to return home (because she knows from the start that she will be going home eventually) different and make her efforts worthwhile.  That is where Mrs Basil E Frankweiler, previous owner of Angel, and her mixed-up files come in adding yet another layer and a twist to the story.  I am almost 100% positive that I missed the nuances of this plot thread when I read the story as a child, but I enjoyed it immensely  nonetheless.  As an adult reader, the framework of the story, the narration of the events by Mrs Frankweiler and her frequent asides to her lawyer, Saxonberg, who, by the end of the story is revealed to be the grandfather of the missing Kincaid children, adds an emotional depth and richness to the story that makes it even more meaningful. 

There is a really moving event near the end of the book that I won't reveal, but I will say that Konigsburg is brilliant at creating fully formed child characters.  Reading as a child, Claudia did not seem real to me in the way that she reminded me of myself or one of my friends, but real in the way that she was like me, but a better me.  I wanted to have her attention to detail, her grammatical knowledge that she was constantly wielding over her brother, her sense of self direction and her sense of importance.  Both Jamie and Claudia seemed to see things and think about things in ways that seemed just that much better than what I was up to as eleven-year old and that is why, despite the uniquely creative story line, this book stuck with me as I grew.  

EL Konigsburg has written sixteen novels, two of which are out of print, and two short story collections.  I have read six of her books and plan to get busy reading and selling the rest.  I think she may be the most prolific, talented writer of realistic fiction for kids and I hope she has a few more books in her because they keep getting better.  Two other books of hers that center around works of art are The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place and  the mysterious edge of the heroic world.

Other authors of late have begun taking up the "missing/mysterious work of art/artist" theme in one way or another.  They include two fabulous books by Elise Broach, Masterpiece and Shakespeare's Secret. Blue Balliett has added to the genre with Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3 and The Calder Game.

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by EL Konigsburg, 296 pp RL 5

EL Konigsburg is a master at pulling together seemingly disparate threads to illuminate what will become a milestone event in her characters' lives.  An author of a fantasy novel has the luxury of using fantastic plot elements, like a boy who is born with wizarding powers and suffers years of cruel treatment at the hands of his guardians, treatment that allows him to shine that much brighter when he is given the chance, not to mention his abilities with a broomstick, to detail the specialness of her characters. EL Konigsburg's stories, rooted in reality, manage to take commonplace childhood events, like being sent to camp and mean girls and mix them, like an artist mixes paint colors, into a rich, revealing story that allows her characters to shine and glow in their specialness while also standing squarely in a firm plot of reality that might possibly be inhabited by any reader at almost any time. 

Like From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler and the mysterious edge of the heroic world, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place centers around a work of art (or two). However, unlike the other two books, which mention imaginary works by known artists, Outcasts revolves around an imaginary work of Outsider art that brings to mind Watts Towers  which were built between 1921 and 1954 by an Italian immigrant named Sabato Rodia.  The outcasts of the title are Hungarian immigrants, brothers Alex and Morris Rose, who bought their house and began constructing the towers in their back yard some forty-five years before the story begins in the summer of 1983.  Konigsburg sets the stage for this period with a time capsule from sometimes narrator, twelve year old Margaret Rose Kane, who tells us that this was the year Sally Ride became the first woman in space, the year Ma Bell was broken up into several independent, low-cost phone companies and also the year the FCC authorized Motorola to begin testing cell phone services.  

Margaret, who adores her great uncles and spends large amounts of time with them, is sent to summer camp for four weeks while her parents, both professors at Clarion State University in Epiphany, go on a dig in Peru.  Margaret is shocked not to be included in the trip and equally surprised that she has not been given the option to stay with her beloved great uncles.  In light of this, she puts all her efforts into selecting the best camp.  Despite her efforts, she ends up at a camp run by a tight laced woman who refers to herself as "we" and "us" and in a cabin with six alums who decide to pull every prank they know on her.  This leads Margaret to respond, "I prefer not to," to every activity, winning her the name Bartleby, from the Herman Melville story "Bartleby the Scrivener."  The name is awarded by Jake Kaplan, camp janitor and handyman who is also an artist and college age son of the camp director.  His sympathy for Margaret and her plight grows when he sees the way his mother treats her and her Uncle Alex, who comes to retrieve her.  Jake offers to drive them back to Epiphany out of kindness and is awed by the towers and anxious to spend more time with the family and their works of art, offering to paint a rose on the ceiling of Margaret's room on his days off.  Thus the cover of the book - the painting of the rose, done by Konigsburg herself, with the shadow of the towers on top of it.

When Margaret accidentally discovers that her uncles have lost a three year battle with their neighbors and the Home Owners Association, she enlists her mother's childhood friends Peter and Loretta, who's families once lived on either side of the uncles, to help her save the towers. The uncles have lived in their house long enough to see their downtown neighborhood go from working class families to slum to yuppie gentrification.  The new home owners consider the towers a useless eyesore and, being lawyers, they know how to go about removing them. However, Peter Vanderwaal is now the curator of an art center and Loretta is a lawyer and executive for Infinitel, one of the newly created long distance phone companies that have sprung up in the wake of Ma Bell's demise.  Jake and his mother, as well as the devious campers who caused Margaret to pursue her course of passive resistance, come to the aid of the towers with some passive resistance of their own.  After a great showdown that garners national attention, Loretta saves the day when Infinitel offers to buy the towers and move them to a nearby hill that over looks the college because they realize they can kill two birds with one stone.  They have publicity they didn't have to buy as well as artwork that can serve as cell phone antenna towers.  The book ends wonderfully with Margaret, now a college student, looking back on the events and providing updates on the major players in the story.

This book is so well written, the characters so complex and interesting and their dilemmas so compelling, that it feels like a book for adults.  I'm sure it would be it the main character wasn't twelve, but the beauty of the book it how important it is that the main character is twelve and we see the story mainly through her eyes.  She is invested in different ways than the adults and has a perspective that allows the reader to learn a bit about life, love and loss in ways that an adult narrator couldn't have pulled off.  

The Second Mrs Giaconda by EL Konigsburg, 138 pp RL 5

Written in 1975, The Second Mrs Giaconda is an imagined explanation of how  Leonardo da Vinci came to paint his famous work, La Joconde, or the Mona Lisa.  As fascinating story, it doesn't have the same immediacy of character or flow that other works by Konigsburg posses.  However, it is steeped in fascinating details from the historical period and, though it is a bit harder to connect with and find likable the characters of the story, Konigsburg pulls the threads of their various lives and personalities together in a satisfying ending that begins with the commissioning of the famous portrait.

Obviously the result of much research, Konigsburg begins her story with details from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci concerning an apprentice named Salai.  A noted thief, Salai was also left a piece of property with a house on it in Leonardo's will.  Konigsburg takes these facts and runs with them, beginning her story with a young, possibly ten year old Salai, cutting the purse from a companion of Leonardo's as they walk down the streets of Milan.  The young boy with the golden curls becomes an apprentice in Leonardo's workshop as well as a companion and the sketch from Lenoardo's notebooks that graces the cover of Konigsburg's book is meant to suggest what Salai might have looked like.  Several other works of art are represented in the back of the book, including a finished portrait as well as more notebook sketches by Leonardo as well as works of art by other artists representing other historical figures who appear in The Second Mrs Giaconda.

The relationship between Leonardo and the boy Salai is given an explanation and a framework by the presence of Beatrice d'Este, child bride of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, also known as Il Moro, or the Moor, because of his dark skin.  Beatrice is wed to the Duke of Milan when he misses his chance to marry her older, more beautiful and witty sister, Isabella, by two weeks. Besides being second choice, Beatrice must also compete with the Duke's long time mistress, Cecelia Gallerini, who has been immortalized in a portrait by Leonardo.  When Beatrice, who is only a few years older than the now thirteen year old Salai, mistakes him for a dwarf sent from Mantua by her sister, who breeds them, in a effort to cheer her up, he plays along and they become fast friends.  This fact, along with her shinning personality, also leads to a friendship with Leonardo, who finds Beatrice intelligent and in possession of an artistic eye.  Soon the three of them are spending evenings together and enjoying themselves so much that others are drawn in and Beatrice becomes the center of a lively, intellectual group of thinkers and artists.  

As her happiness grows, so does her attractiveness and the Duke soon takes notice of her and eventually falls in love with her and she with him.  When this happens, she and Salai begin to see less and less of each other and Beatrice is gradually changed by her new status.  Instead of letting her inner beauty and wit shine through as she once had, Beatrice begins to pile on the jewels and elaborate gowns, ultimately in an attempt to win back her husband's straying attent

ions.  In one exchange, while viewing a grand sculpture of a horse that the Duke has commissioned as a memorial to his father, Beatrice explains her dissatisfaction with the piece by pointing out to Salai the importance of his presence in Leonardo's life.  Salai does not care about art, does not take it seriously the way the rest of the courtiers do, it is his "rudeness and irresponsibility" that gives Leonardo a "wild element," that something that "leaps and flickers."  She goes on to explain that Leonardo is too self-conscious to bring that wild element to his work on his own.  He is too serious and too much the perfectionist and it is up to Salai to keep that element present for him.  In turn, several months later, Salai is able to offer Beatrice some advice and insight while viewing Leonardo's  work in progress at St Marie delle Grazie, his painting of The Last Supper.  Wanting to know her opinion of the work, Salai observes that Beatrice is not as happy as she once was, that her "gaiety is too loud.  And so is [her] dress. Both are covering up something."  To which Beatrice replies, "You were more fun, Salai, before you learned to think."  

The story takes a turn after this exchange, at which point I began to realize that, while there was much talk of Leonardo painting Beatrice's portrait and why she would not allow it, and much insistence and begging on the part of her sister, Isabella, for Leonardo to paint her portrait, there was no mention of Mrs Giaconda of Mona Lisa.  But, like I said above, Kongisburg finds a way to bring Signor and Signora Giaconda into the story that puts the relationships of Leonardo, Salai and Beatrice into perspective.  Whether true or not, Konigsburg has written a fascinating work of historical fiction that introduces children to the multiple geniuses of Leonardo da Vinci as well as the aspects of life during the Italian Renaissance.

For readers who liked this book, I suggest Daughter of Venice by the excellent teen writer, Donna Jo Napoli.  Set in 1592, it is the story of Donata, born to a noble family at a time when only the first born daughter marries and all other daughters are sent to live in convents.  The story is rich with description of the life of a girl during this time, as well as a superb plot line that takes Donata into the Jewish ghetto disguised as a boy.  Also, for younger readers, there is Mary Pope Osborne's Monday with a Mad Genius, Magic Tree House #38, which follows Jack and Annie as they visit Florence, Italy during the Renaissance and have the good fortune to bump into Leonard da Vinci and serve as apprentices as he works on his lost painting, The Battle of Anghiari, for the Hall of Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite a work that was to be completed by Michelangelo, the only time the two ever worked together. Michelangelo abandoned his painting when he was summoned to Rome to build the tomb for Pope Julius II. Leonardo's was lost due to new techniques he employed during the painting, describe in Monday with a Mad Genius.

the mysterious edge of the heroic world by EL Konigsburg, 244pp RL 5

Like William Faulkner and his Yoknapatwpha County, EL Konigsburg is adding to the books set in her mythical Epiphany, PA and sister city of St Malo, Florida.  Along with The View From Saturday (1996), Silent to the Bone (2000),  The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (2004), the mysterious edge of the heroic world (2007) is set in St Malo with roots in and nods to Epiphany, PA.  And, like Outcasts and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler, mysterious revolves around works of art.  In her most ambitious work yet, Konigsburg weaves aspects of the Nazi invasion of Holland, persecution of modern artists, homosexuals and gypsies as well as with Jews, the Stockholm Syndrome, Austrian Amnesia and questions of moral ambiguity throughout the novel.

The story begins with Amadeo Kaplan, named after his grandfather, who has just moved to St Malo, Florida after spending his whole life in New York City.  Amadeo is the child of Loretta Bevilaqua and Jake Kaplan who met some thirteen years earlier in The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place.  It is Amadeo's greatest wish to discover something in his lifetime.  The combination of moving to a new house next to the eccentric Mrs Zender and her impending move to Waldorf Court, an assisted living community, provides the opportunity for him to do so, with some selfish maneuvering and manipulation on the part of Mrs Zender, also known as Aida Lily Tull.  When Amadeo befirends William Wilcox, son of Dora Ellen Wilcox, the estate liquidator in the employ of Mrs Zender, he is granted entry into her house, which is full of amazing antiques and secrets.

As with her other books, adult characters are given as much space on the page as children characters, if not more.  Aida Lily Tull, or Mrs Zender, is a largely (and large) unlikable character.  She is self centered and ego driven, which is explained somewhat by her past.  She was pushed into the profession of opera singer by her ambitious Italian mother, then, when her career seemed to be over, pushed into a marriage with Mr Zender, a worldly, elegant Austrian with a mysterious background.  Peter Vanderwaal, childhood friend of Loretta Bevilaqua and Nadia Landau (mother of Margaret Rose Kane, star of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place and supporting character in Silent to the Bone, which takes place some 10 - 15 years after the first book) is one of the many adults in the mysterious edge of the heroic world. Peter is important to the story as the curator of the Sheboygan Art Center, which is about to host a exhibit of Degenerate "Art." Degenerate "Art" refers to the sixteen thousand works of art confiscated (stolen) by a committee formed by Joseph Goebbels in an effort to rid the world of works that were unacceptable.  Six hundred and fifty of these pieces were exhibited in a Munich warehouse in a show called Entartete "Kunst," or Degenerate "Art," the quotes meant to inform viewers that this, according to Hitler, was not really art.  Peter is also important to the story because, early on in the book after his father's death, his mother (the same Mrs Vanderwaal who provides the security pass that allows Margaret to read transcripts of a city council meeting in Outcast) gives him a box containing his father's handwritten autobiography and some important documents.  

Really, this book is part historical fiction.  Between flashbacks of Peter's father's childhood in Amsterdam during WWII, where he was being raised by his older brother who ran an antiques and art shop with his partner Klaus, and Mrs Zender's reminisces of her family's  history in St Malo and her travels as a performer in pre-WWII Europe, as well as the activities of her husband, much of this book takes place in the past despite being set in the present.  As William and Amadeo help Mrs Wilcox dismantle and parcel out Mrs Zender's life as well as her life story, the sad history of Peter's father Johannes and his brother, Pieter unfolds alongside it.  And the paths of these lives intersect.  I won't reveal how they cross and crisscross because that is part of the discovery that Amadeo pieces together, but I can say that Konigsburg has done a remarkable job of highlighting aspects of the Nazi invasion and the atrocities committed as well as the secrecy and culpability of participants after the war was over.  I think that, along with the very understated and still current theme of persecution of homosexuals, the aftermath of Hitler is an important part of history for our children to learn.  While it is done very subtly, so subtly that I may be wrong, I belive that the character of Peter Vanderwaal is gay, which, even though it is never mentioned in the story, adds a layer to the plot that gives it depth.  

In addition to the history that Konigsburg packs into the story, there are many mentions of artists, from Picasso and Matisse to Klimt, Modigliani and Chagall  as well as writers (Harper Lee, Simone de Beauvoir.)  She also has the charcter of Amadeo recite some really great short poems by Phyllis McGinley about art and artists. I love any book, but especially a children's book, that refers to other books and works of art, as well as historical figures and events.  I think this kind of reference is such a great way to self-educate and I am sure that it accounts in part for my love of reading. And, after all, we want our children to read and to love reading because we want them to learn to think for themselves and educate themselves so that they have the desire to spend their whole lives learning and growing.