CR2: Book 21 From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

After the weight of Weaveworld, I chose this book for two reasons.
One, the cover picture, with its high arched ceiling and tight dark walls: a museum At Night and two children In Pajamas, obviously hiding a secret: fingers pressed to lips and arms locked in defiance. Also, the Newberry Award Medal Winner logo.
And two, it was much shorter. I'm guessing it was written for the tween set, but being 1st published in the late 1960s, my attention was grabbed.

The POV was annoying for only the first few pages but then I accepted it and the rest of the book went down easier. The story is told by an elderly woman who is writing it to her lawyer, whom she's fickle about. She tends to interject old-womanly insights right in the middle of all the action.

Claudia Kincaid is bored of her life in the suburbs. And she feels that having to set the table AND clearing it is a great injustice. She is also upset that her allowance is smaller than her classmates and well, lots of other things. So she decides to run away from home.

Jamie Kincaid is the middle of her three younger brothers and has just been talked into running away with his sister. She is using him for his money (as a 9-year-old, the kid is a cheating gambler AND a miser) and Jamie knows this.

Packing clean underwear in their musical instrument cases, they hide out on the school bus until they can escape and catch a train into New York City, where Claudia wants to hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (as it is winter and they can't very well hang out in Central Park).
Jamie jingles, his pockets weighted down with almost 25 dollars worth of nickels.

Had this story pandered to its readers, I would have stopped early on, but it played out rather cleverly. The museum is large enough to get lost in and the children scatter their belongings, hiding things in a sarcophagus or behind heavy curtains. They sleep in gigantic beds from the 16th century. They bathe at night in a nearby fountain, which is freezing cold but also full of coins people have wished on.

And after a couple of days, they stumble onto a very real mystery. The museum has acquired a statue for only $225...and it may be an early Michaelangelo. It was originally brought to this country from Italy by a certain Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (whom it turnes out, is writing this story to her lawyer, Saxonberg), a pleasant old biddy with 17 file cabinets full of unsorted contracts.

The two Kincaid children leave home as bickering siblings, but along the way, they start to form a real team. The mystery of this statue may or may not be solved, but together with her brother, Claudia finds a resolve to her boredom, a reason to go home.
And I wasn't put off in the least.