E. L. Konigsburg, author of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, has died at the age of 83. This book had the best concept of pretty much any children’s novel I remember ever reading: two spirited tweens (12-year-old Claudia and 9-year-old Jamie) decide to run away from their boring posh suburban home and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The fascination for readers was to plot with Claudia and Jamie how to pull it off — hiding in restroom stalls, bathing in the fountain in the middle of the night, having snappy answers ready for inquisitive security guards. Eventually they uncover a secret about a statue that may or may not be a Michelangelo, and meet the elderly art patron of the title.

“Mixed-Up Files” was Konigsburg’s only major hit, though she wrote many other books. Published in 1967, it was made into a disappointing movie called The Hideaway (starring a miscast Ingrid Bergman in the title role) in 1973, and is thankfully still in print today.