From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was my favorite book when I was in elementary school. I read it several times as a kid. I think Claudia's basic story is every kid's story at some point. What kid doesn't have a time (or times) when he or she wants to run away from home, especially if there's some kind of adventure in it as a bonus?! The fact that Claudia planned her run-away so carefully, and got away with it, intrigued me. The fact that she ran away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and lived there with her brother Jamie for several days without getting caught made her seem like a genius to me. Reading the book now, as an adult, there are little things that bother me. Mostly, I'm bothered by the fact that little details in the book date it (and me!): things like pay telephones and the lack of a highly technological security system in a major art museum. Still, I can excuse most of it. When I read this with my students today, I have to remind them of the setting...; this is not contemporary fiction (sigh), but rather a story that happened almost 50 years ago. Even if it is a dated story, the excitement of running away from home, the details about how Jamie and Claudia manage to live from day to day, and the great art mystery that crops up --captivating Claudia and Jamie, but the reader, too-- all serve to make this a classic that I still consider one of my favorites!