Remembering E. L. Konigsburg

“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It's the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

My husband's favorite childhood book is From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. He says the story made him want to run away and live in a museum. I had a different favorite - a book that my younger sister and I read over and over called Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, the story of two very different girls, one of whom purports to be a witch, and who is a really good friend. E. L. Konigsburg was that rare writer whose books defied categorization by gender or age group, and that explains their long-running mass appeal. She went on to write The View from Saturday about a school Academic Bowl which was on all the gifted book lists when my children were in grade school in the 1990s - such a long career for a truly talented writer!


From NYICD Blog

Konigsburg was the only person to ever win two Newbery awards in the same year, recieving the Newbery honor (honorable mention) for her first manuscript, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, and the Newbery Medal for her second, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

She was perhaps best known for the latter work, in which a brother and sister run away from their suburban home and take up residence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York City. It is told from the point of view of the 82-year-old wealthy and eccentric Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who is dictating the story to her attorney.

The story inspired a scene in the wonderful Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums during which siblings Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Richie Tanenbaum (Luke Wilson) also run away to live in the Met. In 1997, 29 years after her initial award, Konigsburg would again win the Newbery Medal for her story The View from Saturday. After winning the award, marking the longest gap between wins for any author, she told The Associated Press in an interview: "The award represents a kind of validation that I find most gratifying."

From the Detroit News

Konigsburg, better known to millions of young readers as E.L. Konigsburg, died April 19 in Falls Church, Va., after suffering a stroke. She was 83. In "Author Talk," a book edited by Leonard Marcus, Konigsburg said her books were based on what she perceived as a missing type of children's literature.
As a girl, she said, "I never found any characters in books whose lives resembled those of my classmates, my family and me. Years later, this made me want to write for children about things as they are — about people and places that my own children would recognize as real." In "Mixed-up Files," Konigsburg tells what happens when Claudia and Jamie decide to run away from their suburban Connecticut home and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Once there, the children make themselves at home — even sleeping on a historic bed — solve an art mystery, but most importantly discover truths about themselves.