40 Fun Facts About From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

What did the Met pay at auction for the marble angel Claudia Kincaid suspects is a lost masterpiece?

$225 was all the museum paid for a statue that could be a priceless Michelangelo, and Mrs. Frankweiler let it go for that sum on purpose. Her bargain sale is what sets the whole mystery in motion.

Where do Claudia and Jamie Kincaid hide at closing time while guards sweep the Met for stragglers?

The restrooms are where the pair wait out the guards' closing check each evening, then wander the galleries alone all night. By day they blend in by tagging along with visiting school groups on tour.

What do Claudia and Jamie Kincaid collect from the Met fountain that doubles as their nightly bathtub?

Wishing coins tossed in by visitors become the runaways' lunch money once Jamie's savings thin out, gathered while they wash. Konigsburg's book records almost every cent the pair spend.

Why does Claudia Kincaid choose Jamie, not another brother, as her partner in running away?

He has saved his money, which makes the quiet, frugal nine-year-old the perfect treasurer for a runaway scheme with a budget. Claudia supplies the ideas; Jamie supplies the cash and counts every cent.

Mrs. Frankweiler's confidant Saxonberg turns out to be what relation to runaways Claudia and Jamie?

Their grandfather: Saxonberg is the children's mother's father, a surprise the Kincaids themselves never find out. Mrs. Frankweiler signs off by booking him a lunch date at the museum to rewrite her will.

How does Mrs. Frankweiler send the Kincaid runaways home once their adventure at her estate is over?

In her Rolls-Royce, driven by her chauffeur, the two ride back in far more style than the crowded commute that brought them to the city. The ride is part of their bargain with her for the full story.

In which Connecticut town do the Kincaids live, where Claudia feels unappreciated for her chores?

Greenwich is the suburb Claudia flees because she feels her parents do not appreciate her, the only girl in the family and the one stuck with the table and the dishwasher. Its rail line makes a New York getaway easy.

The whole of Mixed-Up Files is framed as a letter from Mrs. Frankweiler to whom?

Her lawyer is the addressee: the prologue is a cover letter explaining why her last will and testament is about to change. The 162-page story that follows is her evidence.

What unique double did Konigsburg achieve at the 1968 Newbery awards with her two debut-year novels?

Winner plus runner-up: Mixed-Up Files took the Medal while Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was runner-up, a double no other author has managed. She heard the news mid-move to Florida.

How many years separated Konigsburg's two Newbery Medals, the longest span between wins for any author?

29 years: the 1968 Medal for Mixed-Up Files was followed by a second in 1997 for a novel whose pieces, she said, came together on a walk along the beach. No other author has waited longer between wins.

What does Claudia Kincaid tuck inside a Roman marble sarcophagus while living at the Met?

Her violin case goes into the sarcophagus, while Jamie's trumpet case gets stuffed into a big decorative urn. Museum guards found both abandoned cases after the children had gone home.

How old is Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the rich and eccentric collector who let the angel go so cheaply?

82 years old, and sharp enough to spot two runaways the moment they walk in, she puts them to work on her files rather than calling their parents. Her model was a school headmistress Konigsburg had worked under.

Where in Connecticut is Mrs. Frankweiler's country estate, the runaways' last stop before home?

Farmington holds her estate and its long bank of filing cabinets; she had recently closed her showcase Manhattan residence. The children travel there after the museum and the library give them nothing.

Which New York Public Library branch do the Kincaid runaways use to research the angel away from the Met?

The Donnell Library, on 53rd Street opposite the Museum of Modern Art, was home to the original Winnie-the-Pooh toys before it closed in 2008 and was rebuilt beneath a hotel. Claudia was sent there by a museum guard.

How does Claudia Kincaid get the two runaways most of the way to New York without paying a fare?

A discarded adult train pass, fished from a wastebasket, covers the commuter line into the city; the rest of the route to the Met is a very long walk. Saving the fare matters to a pair living on Jamie's savings.

What must Claudia and Jamie Kincaid do to inherit Mrs. Frankweiler's proof of who carved the angel?

Tell no one while she lives: in return she will leave the crucial file to them in her will, once they have told her every detail of their adventure. Keeping quiet is easy, since Claudia wants exactly that kind of prize.

According to Mrs. Frankweiler, what did Claudia Kincaid really want from the angel search?

A secret of her own to treasure and keep is what she was after all along, not a headline. Mrs. Frankweiler hands her one and hopes the pair will keep coming back to visit.

Claudia Kincaid is the only girl and the oldest of how many Kincaid children at home in Connecticut?

Four children, and as the eldest and only girl Claudia both sets the table and empties the dishwasher, the injustice that starts her plotting. Jamie is the third child and the middle boy.

Which card game does Jamie Kincaid cheat at, playing for cash with his best friend on the bus every day?

War is the game, and Jamie and his friend keep a gross tradition of never shuffling the cards. His sharp practice with money is exactly why Claudia recruits him as treasurer.

How big is nine-year-old Jamie Kincaid's bankroll when he and Claudia set out for the Met?

$24.43 in savings is the whole bankroll, built by a boy Claudia calls a cheapskate, and it does not last long once they reach the city. The book tracks nearly every cent they spend.

Which national park picnic, with whining kids and ants, gave Konigsburg the idea for Mixed-Up Files?

Yellowstone, where ants got into the salami sandwiches and the sun melted the cupcake icing, taught her that her brood would never settle for anywhere less elegant than the Met. The complainers became Claudia and Jamie.

The real 1965 bargain statue behind the Mixed-Up Files mystery was debated as a possible work by which artist?

Leonardo da Vinci, not Michelangelo, was the name the New York art world argued over when the Met paid a pittance for a Renaissance statue that October. Konigsburg swapped in Michelangelo for her fictional angel.

Who posed for Konigsburg's own black-and-white illustrations of Claudia and Jamie in Mixed-Up Files?

Her two younger children, Laurie and Ross, who turned eleven and nine in 1967, posed as Claudia and Jamie, matching the characters' ages exactly. A neighbor in their Port Chester apartment house sat for Mrs. Frankweiler.

Mrs. Frankweiler was based on the headmistress of a girls' school where Konigsburg taught what subject?

Chemistry was her degree and her job at the Bartram School for Girls, whose matter-of-fact headmistress Olga Pratt became the model for the collector. Writing only began after her children were all in school.

Konigsburg, the first in her family to earn a degree, graduated in 1952 from which Pittsburgh university?

Carnegie Mellon, then called Carnegie Institute of Technology, gave her a science degree in a subject she picked because she was good at it, her 'artistic side essentially dormant'. She later did graduate work across town.

In which Florida city, her longtime home, did Konigsburg teach at a girls' school before turning to writing?

Jacksonville, where she taught science at the Bartram School for Girls until 1955, became her home again after the Port Chester years, along with nearby Ponte Vedra Beach. She learned of her Newbery win during the move back.

Which editor at Konigsburg's publisher accepted both of her first two manuscripts, submitted together in 1966?

Jean Karl, who had built her publisher's children's department from scratch in 1961, took a chance on an unpublished suburban mother of three and got the 1968 double out of it. Mixed-Up Files was the second of the two to appear.

Which New York art school did Konigsburg join after the family moved to Port Chester in 1962?

The Art Students League sharpened the drawing skills she would use to illustrate her own novels, from Mixed-Up Files to the picture books of the 1990s. Painting had begun at continuing-education classes in Florida.

Which Konigsburg novel about a sixth-grade Academic Bowl team won her second Newbery Medal?

The View from Saturday follows a quartet of sixth-graders who call themselves The Souls as they win the New York state championship for their paraplegic teacher, Mrs. Olinski. Each one narrates a chapter.

Konigsburg was born in New York City in 1930 but grew up in small towns of which state?

Pennsylvania's small towns raised the second of three daughters of Jewish immigrants, and she stayed in-state for college. New York was only her birthplace and, much later, the setting she made famous.

Which actress, holder of three Oscars, played Mrs. Frankweiler in the 1973 film of Mixed-Up Files?

Ingrid Bergman took the role of the old collector a year before filming Murder on the Orient Express, which brought her third Academy Award. The film shot inside the real Met, from the Great Hall to the Arms and Armor gallery.

Under what title was the 1973 Mixed-Up Files film released in the UK and on home video?

The Hideaways is the name on most home-video copies, which is why many viewers never connect the film with the novel's famous title. Roger Ebert praised it as a family film that 'doesn't insult the intelligence'.

Which star, Humphrey Bogart's widow, played Mrs. Frankweiler in the 1995 television film of Mixed-Up Files?

Lauren Bacall played the collector in the made-for-TV remake, which aired on ABC in June 1995. TV Guide called her 'appropriately dignified' in the part.

The 1973 film of Mixed-Up Files moved the Kincaid family's home from Connecticut to which state?

New Jersey was the film's version of suburbia, with location work in Madison and on the Erie Lackawanna Railway. Macy's and the General Post Office also appear.

Which Mel Brooks comedy regular plays the schoolteacher in the 1973 Mixed-Up Files film?

Madeline Kahn, a year before Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein made her famous, has a small part as a schoolteacher. George Rose plays Saxonberg, recast as a butler.

Who directed the 1973 Mixed-Up Files film, which Roger Ebert praised for not insulting the intelligence?

Fielder Cook, a television veteran whose 1971 movie The Homecoming spawned The Waltons, shot the picture on location in the real Met. Blanche Hanalis wrote the screenplay.

In the 1973 Mixed-Up Files film, until which birthday must Claudia keep the statue's truth before inheriting it?

Her 21st birthday is the film's deadline, while the novel asks only that the children keep quiet during Mrs. Frankweiler's lifetime. Jamie, meanwhile, loses a card game to her while Claudia takes a long bath.

In the 1995 Mixed-Up Files film, what in Mrs. Frankweiler's files finally proves Michelangelo carved the angel?

A sketch from his notebook, one of Michelangelo's own, matches the statue and settles the question the experts could not. Earlier the children find a mark he left on many of his works.

Which future Chicago P.D. star played Jamie Kincaid in the 1995 Mixed-Up Files television film?

Jesse Lee Soffer, later Detective Jay Halstead on Chicago P.D. for nearly a decade, was the young runaway-turned-sleuth in the ABC remake. He has since returned to the police drama as a director.

Whose antique bed, part of a 2,000-piece bequest to the Met, do Claudia and Jamie Kincaid sleep in each night?

Irwin Untermyer, a New York judge and twenty-year Met trustee, left the museum one of the world's great private collections, and his antique bed became the runaways' bedroom. Mrs. Frankweiler quips that she once considered donating her own.