Author/Illustrator: E.L. Konigsburg
Published: Simon & Schuster, 1967

"Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn't like discomfort..." So Claudia decides to run away to 'a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place." And that his how she and her brother Jamie (chosen as a companion because of his relatively large savings) wind up sleeping in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The details of their adventure are just the sort to enchant readers, and when they become embroiled in a mystery surrounding a statue that may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo, it becomes even more exciting.