From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Although From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is not directly based on any of the author’s life experiences, there are some similarities. When she wrote From the Mixed-Up Files, her second novel, Elaine Lobl (E. L.) Konigsburg was living in a suburb of New York City and raising three children, who posed for her illustrations of Jamie, Claudia, and others in the novel; she often dropped her children off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while she took art lessons in the city. According to her interviews and writings, Konigsburg came up with the novel’s central idea after several key experiences (Sauer, Patrick. “The True Story Behind Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Her Mixed-Up Files.” Smithsonian Magazine, 2017). One was a disastrous picnic with her children, which convinced her that if they ever ran away, it would be to somewhere comfortable. The second was a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a stray piece of popcorn led her to speculate that someone had spent the night in the museum. In her afterword to the 35th-anniversary edition of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Konigsburg explains that she drew inspiration for