From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (audio book/movie)

Claudia is tired of living her ordinary life; of having to take care of her brothers and doing her chores.  So she decided to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art taking her cheapskate (and "rich") brother, Jamie, with her.  The two have a great time living at the museum when they discover a statue reported to have been carved by the great Michelangelo.  Determined to find out the truth about the statue leads Claudia and Jaime to the original owner, Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

I read this book a lot when I was a kid.  Like a whole lot.  I was always fascinated by the idea of living in a museum and how awesome that would be.  And of course with the mystery of Angel, the Michelangelo statue.  I thought that was so great and I loved Claudia and Jamie and how clever they were.  I still thought that though I realized how annoying Claudia was and Jamie is so funny.  The money exchange was funny because this was written in 1968 when a dime was big money and a quarter was even bigger.  Nothing really new stood out though from child to adult perspective, but it was nice to revisit an old favorite.  I will definitely be adding this to the little man's shelf.

The narrator of the story is Mrs. Frankweiler and it was read by Jan Miner who did an excellent job of giving everyone voices and adding some humor to the reading.

 I watched the made-for-TV movie with Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Frankweiler, Jean Marie Barnwell as Claudia and Jesse Lee Soffer as Jamie.  I saw this when it originally aired in 1995, but hadn't thought about it much.

This movie gives Claudia more motivation than the book does for running away.  Her parents are very busy and expect her to pick up the slack and her brothers don't seem to do very much.  So the story stays pretty true to the book; the kids run away and live in the Museum and then the Angel statue comes to the museum and Claudia wants to solve the mystery.  Mrs. Frankweiler appears a few more times in the movie and the parents have a bigger part.  I liked the kids they picked for the parts.  They did a good job with their parts and they were age appropriate.  It is a very cute movie and a good example of turning a book into a movie.

A Little Princess (eBook/Movie)

Sweet, rich Sara Crew is sent to boarding school by her father.  When he dies and loses their fortune, she is made to be a servant by the headmistress of the boarding school.  But Sara combats the drudgery and hunger of this new life with her imagination.

While I've read The Secret Garden many time, I've never read A Little Princess before.  I'm not sure why except maybe I never liked it when Sara loses her fortune and everyone is really mean to her.  She is an expectational sweet child, very modest and good and wonderful.  She has a wonderful imagination and I liked that part of the story.  It is so horrible how Miss Minchin treats her and Becky, the scullery maid and Sara puts up with it wonderfully.  She is, admittedly, a little too nice and sometimes I wanted her to lose her temper, but I suppose that would negate the point of the story which is be nice and wonderful things will happen, I guess.

While I had never read the book before, I have seen the Shirley Temple movie many times.  It isn't nearly as sad as the book.  Sara's father is listed as dead in the Boer War and so she is made a servant and she is suppose to be tired and hungry and dirty, but she doesn't look it.  The whole book only happens over a year and Sara is 10 at the end of the movie.  There is a subplot with two of the teachers falling in love and then the man goes away to the war, but for some reason they don't tell that they got married before and that causes problems.  The man next door does help her out and give her nice things but they never explain why.  Shirley Temple is delightful and since she is in this movie there is are two musical numbers, one to cheer up soldiers and one in a fantasy sequence.  She was awfully cute.  And there is a happy ending, after all because what kind of Shirley Temple movie would it be without a very happy ending.

Sister of the Bride (ebook)

From Barnes and Noble:
Barbara can hardly believe her older sister is getting married. With all the excitement of wedding plans going on, Barbara can't help dreaming of the day she will be the bride. She can't wait to fall in love.

But as the big day gets closer, wedding planning often turns into family arguments. Even the bride and groom are bickering over details, and Barbara's fun-loving sister is turning into a very practical, grown-up person. Weddings are fun, but all this serious stuff is scary enough to make Barbara think she's not going to be rushing into a serious romance any time soon.

Oh, don't mind me, Barbara thought, I'm just the sister of the bride. p.284 ebook

I've never had the experience of reading any of Beverly Cleary's teen books so I thought I'd give this one a try.  Written in 1963, it had a very old-fashioned tone.  Normally I don't notice this things since I read and watch so many old books and movies, but for some reason I noticed with this book.  It was funny because the girls know how to sew and Barbara makes cookies for her "love interest" but mostly what stood out was the way her dad talk about "man's house is his castle" and her little brother referred to polishing silver as "women's work."  But I could tell that Cleary was trying to be modern because Barbara's sister, Rosemary, is still going to college and have a career even though she is getting married.  That was a really big deal to everyone in the book and I thought it was funny.  I also liked how Barbara's imagination would get the best of her and she acted like it was her wedding too.  I know that little sisters can be like that.  But as soon as she saw the reality of what married life would entail for Rosemary, being a wife, working and going to school, she wasn't so eager to get married or grow up so fast.

Harriet the Spy (audio book/movie)

Harriet loves to write in her notebook.  She takes notes on anything that she sees and writes down all her thoughts.  But when her notebook is read by her class and they see some of the things she thinks about them, they decided to start a Spycatcher's Club.

I read Harriet the Spy along time ago and, though, I thought it was good, it was never one of my re-reads as a kid.  There are so many elements that made me uncomfortable that I could never bring myself to read it again.  Some of that still hits home as an adult.  When I was a kid, I also felt sorry for Harriet.  Her classmates read something that was private and made her miserable and they turned on her so quickly without giving her a chance to explain.  They played mean tricks on her.  And she is so sad after the loss of her nurse, Ole Golly, which adds to her general misery after being ostracized at school.  So I could never stand to read about her depression.

As an adult, I see all of that and I still feel sorry for Harriet.  Because she really was depressed. But the thing I wonder about are the adults of the story, specifically Harriet's parents and Ole Golly.  I really wonder if they thought Ole Golly could leave and Harriet would just move on.  I'm assuming that Ole Golly did most of the caretaking and so it would be like your mother just one day saying Bye.  Have a nice life.  I mean I know Golly loved her and was sad to go.  I can see more of that now that I'm older.  But Harriet is not the most mature or introspective child and so she couldn't recognize the depression that followed Golly leaving.  And the adults really did nothing to help that.   And then to add to Harriet's misery her friends find her notebook and turn on her.  They really don't do too much to her, but then ignoring her I think is the worst.  Harriet though cannot understand why they are mad and if she would have just ask an adult I think they could have explained it to her.  Also her parents take away her notebook which was the worst decision they could have made.  I was glad when they finally took her to a psychologist because she really should have gone much earlier.

Harriet as a character is funny and insightful and brutally honest but she is also a pain in the neck and shouts too much and is very sassy.  In other words, she is very much like a lot of 11 year olds.  I think she was a good friend to Janie and Sport and out of all of the kids those two should have given her a chance to explain.  But then, I guess, when your best friend says mean things about you, you would take it the hardest.  Though someone needs to explain to the children that we all have uncharitable thoughts about others at one time or another.  Harriet just make the mistake of writing them down.

In 1996, Nickoledeon made a movie starring Michelle Trachtenberg as Harriet and Rosie O'Donnell as Ole Golly.  And I sat down to watch it after listening to the book. This is a fairly accurate and a good represenatation of the book.  There are a few chances here and there, the biggest being that after Harriet's friends start their club and spill paint on her (instead of ink) she gets back at them in various ways like posting an embarrassing picture of Sport and messing up one of Janie's experiments.  She does some mean stuff in the book, but not quite like in the movie.  And Golly comes back instead of just writing to her.  But the tone is right and Michelle Trachtenberg does such an excellent job of protraying Harriet.

Side note: I've heard that Disney is doing a new verison with Jennifer Stone from Wizards of Waverly Place and I just cannot fanthom that.  She is way too old to play Harriet and I think it is going to be awful.

The Westing Game (audio)

When the wealthy neighbor of an apartment complex dies, he leaves behind a will naming sixteen people as his heirs.  All they have to do is find out who murdered him to collect the inheritance by playing his game.

Written in 1978, The Westing Game won a Newbery in 1979. So this book is as almost as old as I am and yet this is the first time I've ever read it.  I liked it.  I was very interested in the outcome of the book.  It reminded me of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World except not with a car race or anything.  The heirs each get clues and they are suppose to figure out who took the life of the millionaire.  I expected the ending I got, but I loved the characters.  Some of them turned out to be different than I expected.  The only thing was that some of the language was pretty un-PC, which is to be expected from a book written in the 70's.  I thought the solution was pretty clever though and I'm glad there was an epilogue.  I like knowing what happens to the characters.

The Great Brain (audio)

The best con man in the Midwest is only ten years old. Tom, a.k.a., the Great Brain, is a silver-tongued genius with a knack for turning a profit. When the Jenkins boys get lost in Skeleton Cave, the Great Brain saves the day. Whether it’s saving the kids at school, or helping out Peg-leg Andy, or Basil, the new kid at school, the Great Brain always manages to come out on top—and line his pockets in the process. -Goodreads


I read this book when I was in fourth or fifth grade and I vaguely remember what happened.  Well, really I only remembered the "water closet" story since I was fascinated by the idea that people didn't always have indoor plumbing.  But the rest of the stories were familiar in a way.  The Great Brain tricks people into giving him money in some way that they don't know they are being swindled.  He is a Tom Sawyer type, for sure.  He also got on my nerves.  I was tired of him doing good deeds for greedy reasons and kept waiting for him to get his just reward, which he does, but not when he deserved it, in my opinion.  Also his brother, John, was not too bright (but then he is only 8) and Tom took advantage of him a lot.

Another thing was how often they say the words "Great Brain."  Tom refers to his great brain and John says Tom will use his great brain a lot.  This might be a product of having listened to the audio version and so I noticed it more, but they say it a lot.  They also don't use contradictions when they speak and that was made more apparent by the audio version.  And that bothered me for some reason.

Anyway, while it was nice to revisit an old childhood favorite, it didn't really translate that well for me as an adult.  So this one might be better left to the kids.


*for Shelf Discovery and the Rainbow Connection Challenge

The Shelf Discovery Challenge - COMPLETE

Yes, another challenge.  There should be a 12 step program for addicts like me.  Ah well, this looks cool.  Julie at Booking Mama is hosting the Shelf Discovery Challenge.  Here are the details:

The Shelf Discovery Challenge will run for six months (November 1, 2009 - April 30, 2010). To join me in this challenge, all you need to do is grab a copy of SHELF DISCOVERY and pick out what six books you want to read (of course, you can read more than six!) Then, after you read a book, just write a "book report" to share your thoughts with others!

The books are mostly YA or middle grade "classics" that I grew up with so I'm using this opportunity to revisit some of my old favorites and read some that I've never read before.

ETA: Here is my final list. (2/17/10)

√ 1. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (one of my absolute favorite books when I was young.  I can't tell you how many times I have read it but it's been a very long time)

√ 2. The Great Brain by John Dennis Fitzgerald (I remember getting this one from my elementary school library.)

√ 3. Sister of the Bride by Beverly Clearly

√ 4. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (never read it before)

√ 5. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (I've seen the Shirley Temple movie but have never read the book)

√ 6. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh