Sometimes I think I was born reading. I can’t remember a time when there weren’t books that I loved. Books that meant more to me than just a story. One of the earliest books that I can remember having that kind of impact on me was E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
I read that book when I was eight or nine years old. My parents were going through the kind of divorce that involves private detectives and social workers. I can remember feeling some kind of relief knowing that at least in this book, kids like Claudia Kincaid (and me) could do something important. It was my first real inkling that children could have power.
I still have my beat-up copy of The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It’s on my daughter Ruby’s big red bookshelf.
Next month my daughter Adrienne (Claudia was on the short list of names for her in 1992) and I will go to New York City, and we’ll visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Will sit for a while, so that she can sketch. Maybe we’ll have coffee in the cafe. We’ll look at the Egypt room and the statues and the huge paintings. We’ll do all the things that everyone does when the visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 3000 miles away.
But for me there will be a little something extra. I will imagine hiding in the bathroom. I’ll wonder what it would feel like to be alone there, after dark. I’ll consider fishing coins out of the fountain. I’ll think about the secrets that the art works hold. I’ll contemplate having secrets of my own.
E.L. Konigsburg died on April 19th. She was 83 years old. She didn’t write me into her will, I never got to dig through her files looking for a secret. Of course, she didn’t even know I exist. But she left me a story that meant something to me when I was a kid. A story that maybe helped shape my desire to be a writer. A story that fueled my imagination at a time when I desperately needed it. A story that I’ve enjoyed sharing with my children.
Rest in peace, Mrs. Konigsburg, and thank you for sharing your stories.
