Read Across America Road Trip Begins In NYC

In a way, we’ve been preparing for this Read Across America Road Trip for years, as we explored the setting of the children’s book du jour.  From My Side of the Mountain in the Catskill Mountains, to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in Mississippi, we’ve had a grand time following the footsteps of fictitious children.

Most recently, I revisited another storybook travel favorite in New York City as we shared it with my second child. This was an excellent dress rehearsal for our cross-country road trip, combining learning and fun into a jam-packed day.

Discovering The Mixed-Up Files

I first discovered From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a story about a pair of siblings who run away to the Metropolitan Museum, as a recent college grad, while working as a paralegal in a big New York City law firm.  I had decided to restart my children’s book collection, a casualty of too many overseas moves, and wanted to enlarge it by soliciting my friends’ childhood favorites.

One of my co-workers, a recent Yale graduate, was a native New Yorker, who grew up in Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side.  This was a girl of privilege, accustomed to the finer things in life, who could truly appreciate that some kids aren’t cut out to run away to the woods.  Some children require 5-Star lodging, and nothing less the priceless furnishings of a world-class residence will do.  I guess it’s no surprise that this friend’s favorite children’s book was the E.L. Konigsburg classic.

Visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I have many fond memories of visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a young adult, but it’s a different experience visiting with kids.  You’re forced to slow down, and find ways to make the works of art accessible and interesting.

The Met provides lots of programs and self-guided tour material to help you find the right hook, including The “Mixed-Up Files” Issue of Museum Kids.  You can use this guide to plan what to see within the overwhelmingly vast collections of the Met. 

On this visit, I used this guide and the suggestions in Storybook Travel, but added my own flare.

Stopping At The Cloisters

You might think it’s too much to visit two art museums in one day, but, alright, you’re right.  It’s too much, but that’s how I travel.  Sometimes I go overboard in my travel plans.  That’s just how I do things. 

Since we were driving into the city, on a daytrip in May, I couldn’t resist a stop at the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum’s uptown branch, and one of the few places in NYC that offers free parking.  I wanted a peek at the gardens, and this seemed like a good way to introduce our kids to the Renaissance art that provides the mystery in The Mixed-Up Files. 

Our first stop was in the Garden Cafe.  After three hours on the road, I was desperately in need of a cup of coffee, and the kids needed a little pick-me-up as well.  Not that I needed an excuse to sit by the garden.

I had the sense to keep our time at the Cloisters brief as I didn’t want to overwhelm the kids.  I told them we would just stay long enough to find an angel like the one that inspired Claudia.  Surprisingly, we had no luck finding an angel sculpture, but we recreated scenes in the book as we visited a chapel, and later snuck into a student tour.

As I said, we didn’t stay long, and we were soon on our way to the main branch of the Metropolitan Museum, where parking isn’t free, but it’s convenient.

Following Claudia’s Footsteps

I like to let the kids lead the way in museums, so I handed over the Met’s Mixed-Up Files Issue, and did my best to keep up as the kids ran to find the exhibits mentioned in the book.   They soon discovered the urn and sarcophagus where the runaway children hid a trumpet and satchels:

While the beds that were featured in the book are no longer on display, this bed was appropriately opulent:

Mostly, we ended up exploring the Egyptian Wing.   Even though it wasn’t part of the book, we visited the oh so dramatic Temple of Dendur.  Afterwards, we lost ourselves in learning about the Egyptian artifacts, just like the children in The Mixed-Up Files, even slipping into the recessed rooms to escape detection.

No tour of the Mixed-Up Files is complete without a look at the blue silk chair that inspired the book.  When we found the chair, we read aloud the passage from E.L. Konigsberg in the Mixed-Up Files Museum Kids where she tells us that she got the idea for the story while visiting the Met with her children, and noticing a popcorn kernel on a blue silk chair in the Hotel de Varengeville period room.

This is also a good spot to stop and discuss story inspirations, before wandering and searching for our own story starters.

Usually, when we explore the Mixed-Up Files setting, we include a visit to the Medieval Armor exhibit.  This time, I forgot about the armor, in favor of a more current armor, that of the Costume Exhibit – The Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion.

This didn’t have anything to do with the Mixed-Up Files, but it was interesting, and I knew it would appeal to my daughter.

An Army Marches On It’s Stomach

I find that these kinds of expeditions always go better when everyone is well fed.  The Met offers several options for feeding the family, from the diverse options in cafeteria, to the very elegant cafe near Greek and Roman exhibits.

On this day, we chose to dine outside of the Met.  Sitting on the front steps, we enjoyed hot dogs and shish kabob, while listening to a jazz band. 

Later, we left our car parked at the Met, to walk through Central Park, before heading west, to go to my kid’s favorite NYC destinations – Dylan’s Candy Bar and Serendipity 3, home of the frozen hot chocolate:

On Climax, Not Setting

The reason we were at the Met was that my son’s book club was exploring The Mixed-Up Files as part of an ongoing project to read/work through the assignments in Deconstructing Penguins: Parents, Kids, and the Bond of Reading.  So far, the book club has learned about protagonists, antagonists, and setting.

Although you might expect that they would explore the story element of setting with this book, the authors skipped the obvious to discuss climax instead.

I have to admit that we haven’t discussed climax with the kids as our visit did not lend itself to challenging lessons.  We went with the obvious, and talked about how setting affected the story, especially in contrast to the other runaway story, My Side of the Mountain.

More Book Club Questions (from 100 Books For Girls To Grow On by Shireen Dodson):

• Why does Claudia want to run away from home? Have you ever felt like doing that? Why?
• Why does Claudia call running away a “great adventure”?  What’s your idea of a “great adventure”? Why?
• Why is the statue of the angel in the museum important to Claudia?
• Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler observed that “often the search proves more profitable than the goal.”  What do you think she means by that?  Have you ever experienced that?

Not So Mixed Up

Even though we’ve temporarily tabled our discussion of climax as a story element, the authors of Deconstructing Penguins make a strong case for arguing that the Mixed-Up Files is really about discovering that “what distinguishes people from one another is effort, what they put into things.”

I found their conclusion to this section insightful, especially as we venture forth on a summer long road trip of discovery:

You know, the way Claudia felt at the beginning of this book – bored, uneasy with herself, wanting to be different – is not unique to her age…You may feel that way when you are seventeen, or twenty-seven or thirty-seven or eighty.  And if you feel that way, art is not the only place to turn for help.  You can go to science or math or music or history or literature – anyplace where you can learn, so long as your effort is genuine.  Because the act of learning helps people grow on the inside, so that you can find out who you really are, and what you are capable of, just like Claudia.

Related Articles:

• Book Babes: A Mother Daughter Book Club
• Exploring My Side of the Mountain, Part 1
• How To Plan A Read Across America Road Trip
• Reading On The Road

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