Ding Ding Ding: Quiz Answers!

I love that two of those books were known by nearly everyone who commented, and that the third was nearly completely obscure. But Melanie got it!!!

#1 is of course Claudia, from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg, 1967). In it, two suburban children run away and hide out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was a suburban child and I wanted to do that - I wanted to sleep in that antique bed, and bathe in the fountains, and hide in the bathrooms.

#3 is Milo of The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, 1961). Imagine driving through a tollbooth parked in the middle of your own room and ending up elsewhere - ending up in a topsy-turvy and playful world full of numbers and words and puns and riddles and puzzles.

And #2 is the spunky Maria of Mistress Masham's Repose (T.H. White, 1946). Maria's an orphan and discovers that Gulliver's Lilliputians are living on an island in a lake on her dilapidated estate. A spunky orphan! With an evil governess and an indulgent Cook! And little tiny people! And a map on the endpapers! This is an utterly charming book that takes a kernel from Gulliver's Travels and spins it into something completely its own. I found a little essay about it that well encapsulates the whimsy of the book - and I highly recommend it to all.