Konigsburg, E.L. 1930- (Elaine Lobl Konigsburg)

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Konigsburg, E.L. 1930- (Elaine Lobl Konigsburg)

Personal

Born February 10, 1930, in New York, NY; daughter of Adolph (a businessman) and Beulah Lobl; married David Konigsburg (a psychologist), July 6, 1952; children: Paul, Laurie, Ross. Education: Carnegie Mellon University, B.S., 1952; graduate study, University of Pittsburgh, 1952-54. Religion: Jewish.

Addresses

Home—Vedra, FL.

Career

Writer. Shenango Valley Provision Co., Sharon, PA, bookkeeper, 1947-48; Bartram School, Jacksonville, FL, science teacher, 1954-55, 1960-62.

Awards, Honors

Honor Book designation, Book Week, Children's Spring Book Fair, 1967, and Newbery Honor Book designation, American Library Association (ALA), 1968, both for Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth; Newbery Medal, ALA, and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, both 1968, and William Allen White Award, 1970, all for From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; Carnegie Mellon Merit Award, 1971; Notable Children's Book designation, ALA, and National Book Award finalist, both 1974, both for A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver; Notable Children's Book designation, ALA, and American Book Award nomination, both 1980, both for Throwing Shadows; Children's Books of the Year designation, Child Study Association of America, for Jennifer, Hecate,

Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, About the B'nai Bagels, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and Journey to an 800 Number; Notable Children's Book designation, ALA, Parents' Choice Award for Literature, and Notable Children's Trade Book for the Language Arts designation, National Council of Teachers of English, all 1987, all for Up from Jericho Tel; Special Recognition Award, Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville, FL, 1997; Newbery Medal, 1997, for The View from Saturday; Best Books for Young Adults selections, ALA, for The Second Mrs. Giaconda and Father's Arcane Daughter.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN; SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967, published as Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, and Me, Macmillan (London, England), 1968, reprinted, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2007.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967, thirty-fifth anniversary edition, with new afterword by Konigsburg, 2002.

About the B'nai Bagels, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969.

(George), Atheneum (New York, NY), 1970, published as Benjamin Dickenson Carr and His (George), Penguin (Harmondsworth, England), 1974.

A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1973.

The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1974.

Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1990.

Samuel Todd's Book of Great Inventions, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1991.

Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1992.

FOR CHILDREN

Altogether, One at a Time (short stories), illustrated by Gail E. Haley, Mercer Meyer, Gary Parker, and Laurel Schindelman, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1971, second edition, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1989.

The Second Mrs. Giaconda, illustrated with museum plates, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1975, reprinted, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

Father's Arcane Daughter, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1976, published as My Father's Daughter, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2008.

Throwing Shadows (short stories), Atheneum (New York, NY), 1979, reprinted, Aladdin (New York, NY), 2007.

Journey to an 800 Number, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982, published as Journey by First Class Camel, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1983.

Up from Jericho Tel, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1986.

T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1993.

The View from Saturday, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1996.

Silent to the Bone, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2000.

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2004.

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2007.

FOR ADULTS; NONFICTION

The Mask beneath the Face: Reading about and with, Writing about and for Children, Library of Congress, 1990.

TalkTalk: A Children's Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1995.

OTHER

Also author of promotional pamphlets for Atheneum and contributor to Braille anthology, Expectations 1980, Braille Institute, 1980.

Author's manuscripts and original art are held in collections at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Adaptations

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was adapted as an audio recording, Miller-Brody/Random House, 1969; a motion picture starring Ingrid Bergman, Cinema 5, 1973, released as The Hideaways, Bing Crosby Productions, 1974; and made into a television movie starring Lauren Bacall, 1995. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was adapted as the television movie Jennifer and Me, NBC-TV, 1973, and as a cassette, Listening Library, 1986. The Second Mrs. Giaconda was adapted as a play produced in Jacksonville, FL, 1976. Father's Arcane Daughter was adapted for television as Caroline?, Hallmark Hall of Fame, 1990. Many of Konigsburg's books have been adapted as audiobooks, including About the B'nai Bagels, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, and The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was adapted as a Braille edition.

Sidelights

Known for her witty and often self-illustrated works for young people, E.L. Konigsburg has carved out a unique niche, whether writing out of personal experience or verging far afield to focus on the medieval world and the Renaissance. An impressive figure in children's literature, Konigsburg is also the only author to have had two books on the Newbery list simultaneously: When From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the 1968 Newbery Medal, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was a runner-up for the same award. She has also won a second coveted Newbery medal, capturing the 1997 award for her novel The View from Saturday.

Konigsburg did not set her sights on writing as a career until later in life. Born in New York City in 1930, she was the middle of three daughters. She grew up in small towns in Pennsylvania, not only absorbing books such as The Secret Garden and Mary Poppins, but also much unabashed "trash along the lines of True Confessions," as she once reported in Saturday Review. "I have no objection to trash. I've read a lot of it and firmly believe it helped me hone my taste." Konigsburg also mentioned that as a child she did much of her reading in the bathroom because "it was the only room in our house that had a lock on the door." She also drew often as a child and was a good student in school, graduating as valedictorian of her class. Yet for a young person growing up in the small mill towns of Pennsylvania as Konigsburg did, college was not necessarily the next step. There were advantages to such an upbringing, however. As Konigsburg has commented, "Growing up in a small town gives you two things: a sense of place and a feeling of self-consciousness—self-consciousness about one's education and exposure, both of which tend to be limited. On the other hand, limited possibilities also mean creating your own options. A small town allows you to grow in your own direction, without a bombardment of outside stimulation."

And that is precisely what Konigsburg did: she grew in her own way and decided to head for college. Completely ignorant of such things as scholarships, she devised a plan whereby she would alternate working for a year with a year of school. The first year out of high school she took a bookkeeping job at a local meat plant and there met David Konigsburg, the man who would become her husband. The following year, Konigsburg enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, choosing to major in chemistry. She survived not a few laboratory accidents on the way to eventually earning her degree. Early in her college career, however, a helpful instructor directed Konigsburg to scholarships and work-study assistance, so that she was able to continue her studies without break. Konigsburg noted that college was "a crucial ‘opening up’" period. "I worked hard and did well. However, the artistic side of me was essentially dormant." She graduated with honors, married David Konigsburg, and embarked on graduate study at the University of Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, her husband was also studying, preparing himself for a career in industrial psychology. When her husband won a post in Jacksonville, Florida, Konigsburg picked up and moved with him, working for several years as a science teacher in an all-girls school. The teaching experience opened up a new world for her, giving her insight into the lives of these young girls whom she expected to be terribly spoiled. She also quickly learned that economic ease did nothing to ease inner problems.

Konigsburg left teaching in 1955 after the birth of her first child, Paul. A year later a daughter, Laurie, was born, and in 1959 a third child, Ross. Konigsburg became a full-time mom, taking some time out, however, to pursue painting. She returned to teaching in the early 1960s, until her husband's work required a move to New York. When all three children were finally in school, Konigsburg began writing, employing themes and events close to her family life in her books. She also used her children as her first audience, reading them her morning's work when they came home for lunch. Laughter would encourage her to continue in the same vein; glum faces prompted revision and rewrites. Konigsburg once commented that she had noticed that her kids were growing up very differently from the way she did, but that their growing up "was related to this middle-class kind of child I had seen when I had taught at the private girls' school. I recognized that I wanted to write something that reflected their kind of growing up, something that addressed the problems that come about even though you don't have to worry if you wear out your shoes whether your parents can buy you a new pair, something that tackles the basic problems of who am I? What makes me the same as everyone else? What makes me different?"

Such questions led Konigsburg to her first two books. Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, was based on her daughter's experience making friends in their new home in Port Chester, New York, while From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was inspired by the finicky manner in which her kids behaved on a picnic. Konigsburg also illustrated both these books, as she has many of her titles, using her children as models. The first novel tells the story of Elizabeth, who is new in town, and her attempts at finding friendship. It does not help that she is small for her age, and Cynthia, the cool kid in school, is quick to dismiss her. But then Elizabeth meets Jennifer, another classic outsider who styles herself as a witch. Elizabeth soon becomes her apprentice, and suddenly life is full of adventures. Jennifer is a source of mystery for Elizabeth: she never lets the new girl know where or how she lives, and this is just fine for Elizabeth, who is smitten by Jennifer to the point of declaring that even if she "discovered that Jennifer lived in an ordinary house and did ordinary things, I would know it was a disguise."

Critical reception for Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was quite positive. Booklist contributor Ruth P. Bull called it "a fresh, lively story, skillfully expressed," and a contributor for Publishers Weekly warned against allowing a too-cute title scare readers away from "one of the freshest, funniest books of the season." This same reviewer went on presciently to say that the reader will have "the smug pleasure" of saying in later years—when the author would surely make a name for herself—that he or she had read Konigsburg when she was just beginning. Writing in Horn Book, Ruth Hill Viguers also praised the book, noting that Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth "is full of humor and of situations completely in tune with the imaginations of ten-year-old girls."

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler had its genesis in a family picnic in Yellowstone Park. While Konigsburg's children were complaining about the insects and warm milk and general lack of civilization, Konigsburg realized that if they should ever run away from home, they would surely carry with them all the stuffy suburban ways that were so inbred in them. This started her thinking of a pair of children who run away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a safe sort of imitation of faraway places. Claudia, tired of being taken for granted at home, plans to run away and takes her younger brother Jamie—the one with a sense for finances—with her on this safe adventure. Together they elude guards at the Met, sleep on royal beds, bathe in the cafeteria pool, and loiter on the fringes of school lecture tours during the day. Their arrival at the museum coincides with the showing of a recent museum acquisition, a marble angel believed to have been sculpted by Michelangelo. Soon they are under the spell of the angel and want to know the identity of the carver, which brings them to the statue's former owner, Mrs. Frankweiler. The story is narrated in the form of a letter from Mrs. Frankweiler to her lawyer, and it is she who confronts Claudia with the truth about herself. "Returning with a secret is what she really wants," says Mrs. Frankweiler. "Claudia doesn't want adventure. She likes baths and feeling comfortable too much for that kind of thing. Secrets are the kind of adventure she needs. Secrets are safe, and they do much to make you different. On the inside, where it counts."

In Booklist Bull called From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler "fresh and crisply written" with "uncommonly real and likable characters," praising the humor and dialogue as well. Viguers, writing in Horn Book, noted that although the novel violates every rule of writing for children, it remains "one of the most original stories of many years." A Kirkus Reviews critic commented that whereas Konigsburg's first novel was a "dilly," her second book is "just as fast and fresh and funny, but less spoofing, more penetrating." Plaudits continued from Alice Fleming, who noted in the New York Times Book Review that Konigsburg "is a lively, amusing and painlessly educational storyteller." Washington Post Book World reviewer Polly Goodwin echoed this view, dubbing From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler "an exceptional story, notable for superlative writing, fresh humor, an original theme, clear-eyed understanding of children, and two young protagonists whom readers will find funny, real and unforgettable."

In Konigsburg's acceptance speech for her first Newbery, she talked about her overriding feeling of owing kids a good story. "[I try to] let the telling be like fudge-ripple ice cream. You keep licking the vanilla, but every now and then you come to something richer and deeper and with a stronger flavor." Her books all explore this richer and deeper territory, while employing humor in large doses. However, instant success is a hard act to follow, and her third book, About the B'nai Bagels, a Little League baseball story with a Jewish Mother twist, was not as well received as the first two. In a further suburban tale, (George), Ben is a twelve year old with an inner voice he calls George who acts as a sort of higher intelligence and conscience for the boy. When Ben, who is a bright student, is placed in a high-school chemistry class, George starts acting out, causing a crisis of identity.

A fascination for medieval times led Konigsburg to write A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, an historical fantasy—told from the participants' points of view in heaven—about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Though some critics found the book to be too modern for the subject, in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Zena Sutherland called it "one of the most fresh, imaginative, and deft biographies to come along in a long, long time." Paul Heins, writing in Horn Book, also noted that Konigsburg's drawings "are skillfully as well as appropriately modeled upon medieval manuscript illuminations and add their share of joy to the book." Following in this historical vein is The Second Mrs. Giaconda, the story of Leonardo da Vinci's middle years. Konigsburg posits a solution to the riddle of the Mona Lisa and serves up a "unique bit of creative historical interpretation" with a glimpse of Renaissance culture she has "artfully and authentically illumined," according to Shirley M. Wilton in School Library Journal.

Another more experimental novel—in theme rather than period—is Father's Arcane Daughter, a mystery that has also been published as My Father's Daughter. The novel focuses on the return of Caroline, a young woman who had been kidnapped and presumed dead seventeen years earlier. The story focuses on the effects of Caroline's reappearance on her father, his new wife, and their young children in a "haunting, marvelously developed plot," according to a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.

Konigsburg returns to more familiar ground with The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper and Throwing Shadows, the latter a short-story collection that was nominated for an American Book award. Both Journey to an 800 Number and Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's are considered to be vintage Konigsburg, the second recounting the story of a girl and her grandmother as they attempt to find the time to see Bloomingdale's department store. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's a "vivid portrait of a distraction-filled city—and of a most affectionate relationship."

Up from Jericho Tel relates the encounter between the ghost of a dead actress and two children, who are turned invisible and sent out with a group of street performers to search for a missing necklace. "A witty, fast-paced story," is how a reviewer in Publishers Weekly characterized the novel. A contributor to the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, reviewing Up from Jericho Tel, provided a summation of Konigsburg's distinctive gift to children's literature: "Whether she is writing a realistic or a fanciful story, Konigsburg always provides fresh ideas, tart wit and humor, and memorable characters."

With T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit, Konigsburg again pairs a quirky title with an engaging story. Here young Chloe spends the summer in Florida with her stepfather's sister. While she helps the woman run a meals-on-wheels van, the girl becomes involved in a local controversy over T-back swimming suits. Rachel Axelrod, reviewing the book in Voice of Youth Advocates, concluded that with T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit Konigsburg "has produced another winner!"

The View from Saturday tells the story of four members of a championship quiz bowl team and the paraplegic teacher who coaches them. A series of first-person narratives from the students displays links between their lives in a story that is "glowing with humor and dusted with magic," according to a critic in Publishers Weekly. Julie Cummins concluded in School Library Journal that "brilliant writing melds with crystalline characterizations in this sparkling story that is a jewel in the author's crown of outstanding work." Konigsburg won the 1997 Newbery Medal for this novel, her second in three decades of writing. Commenting on the connection between The View from Saturday and Konigsburg's previous medal winner, The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the author's daughter, Laurie Konigsburg Todd, noted in Horn Book: "Although the inspiration for these Newbery books was as disparate as the three decades which separate their publication, their theme is the same. In fact, every one of E.L. Konigsburg's … novels are about children who seek, find, and ultimately enjoy who they are. Despite this common denominator, [her] writing is the antithesis of the formula book. Her characters are one-of-a-kind."

More one-of-a-kind characters are introduced in Silent to the Bone, the story of a thirteen year old who is wrongly accused of injuring his baby sister. Branwell, shocked by such an accusation, loses the power of speech, and it is left to his friend Connor to reach out to him and discover the truth about what really happened. Accused by the English au pair of dropping and shaking his infant half-sister, Branwell cannot defend himself and is confined at a juvenile center. Employing handwritten flash cards, Connor is able to piece together the events leading up to the 911 call which opens the book. By the end of this journey of discovery, not only is the real villain revealed, but both Bran and Connor come to grips with larger truths in their own lives, including the dynamics of stepfamilies. "No one is better than Konigsburg at plumbing the hearts and minds of smart, savvy kids," commented Horn Book critic Peter D. Sieruta, who called Silent to the Bone an "edgy, thought-provoking novel … written with Konigsburg's characteristic wit and perspicuity." In Booklist Hazel Rochman pleaded for a second reading of the book, not simply for clues to the identity of the real perpetrator, but for "the wit, and insight, the farce, and the gentleness of the telling." Reviewing Silent to the Bone, New York Times Book Review contributor Roger Sutton commented that Konigsburg "is one of our brainiest writers for young people, not only in the considerable cerebral powers she brings to her books but in the intellectual demands she makes on her characters."

Margaret Rose Kane, Connor's half sister in Silent to the Bone, recalls her twelfth summer in The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place. In this story the girl's parents have gone to Peru for the summer, and Margaret's abhorrence of summer camp generates complaints from her cabin mates until she is rescued by her two elderly uncles. When the uncles rescue her from camp and take her to their urban home, she quickly joins in a crusade to save the massive sculptures the uncles have constructed in their garden and which now are under siege by annoyed neighbors armed with city ordinances. Calling The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place "intelligently structured, humorously told, and richly observant," Booklist critic Jennifer Mattson also praised Konigsburg's unconventional and determined young heroine. For Cindy Darling Codell, writing in School Library Journal, the true stars of the novel are Margaret's Hungarian-Jewish uncles, "crotchety with age, but full of love and life and a sure understanding of what it means to be an individual American." In Kirkus Reviews a reviewer also had praise for the book, writing that in The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place Konigsburg "passionately confront[s] … readers with the critical importance of history, art, beauty, community, love, and, above all, the necessity to invest oneself in meaningful action."

Drawing on characters and themes from both The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World investigates the origins of a provocative "degenerate" Modigliani drawing that dates to Nazi Germany. The work of art is discovered by preteens William and Amedeo as they help elderly Jewish neighbor and opera diva Mrs. Zender catalogue her possessions in preparation for moving into a Florida retirement home. Through the help of Amedeo's museum-curator godfather, the drawing becomes a key to the treatment of homosexuals and other undesirables during the Holocaust, as well as revealing the drama within the Zender family. Dubbing Konigsburg "a master of characterization," School Library Journal contributor Renee Steinberg described The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World "an appealing tale of friendship, loyalty, and mystery," while Cooper wrote that the author "writes with a singular intelligence that permeates every page" of her novel. "Quirky, wandering, sometimes unbelievable," The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World "nevertheless takes firm root in the reader's mind, training their eye to watch for stories that need discovering," concluded a Kirkus Reviews writer.

For those who have met them through the pages of Konigsburg's novels, characters such as Jennifer, Elizabeth, Claudia, Bran, Margaret, and Amedeo have become not only best friends to readers, but also telegraphic symbols of complex emotions and adolescent conditions. "The strong demands Konigsburg makes of her characters and the fine moral intelligence she gives them imply much respect for children, a respect she has continued to express in all of her books," asserted Perry Nodelman in his essay on the beloved author for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. A writer who takes her craft seriously yet who manages to avoid heavy-handed thematic writing, Konigsburg views children's books as "the primary vehicle for keeping alive the means of linear learning," as she herself explains in her book TalkTalk: A Children's Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups. Children's books "are the key to the accu- mulated wisdom, wit, gossip, truth, myth, history, philosophy, and recipes for salting potatoes during the past 6,000 years of civilization," she adds. "Children's books are the Rosetta Stone to the hearts and minds of writers from Moses to Mao. And that is the last measure in the growth of children's literature as I've witnessed it—a growing necessity."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Children's Literature Review, Volume 1, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1976.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 52: American Writers for Children from 1960, Fiction, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1986.

Hanks, Dorrel Thomas, E.L. Konigsburg, Twayne, 1992.

Konigsburg, E.L., From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967.

Konigsburg, E.L., Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1967.

Konigsburg, E.L., TalkTalk: A Children's Book Author Speaks to Grown-Ups, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1995.

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, fourth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1995.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1967, Ruth P. Bull, review of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, p. 1048; October 1, 1967, Ruth P. Bull, review of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, p. 199; August, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Silent to the Bone, p. 2135; December 15, 2003, Jennifer Mattson, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 749; September 15, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, p. 65.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 1973, Zena Sutherland, review of A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, pp. 10-11; March, 1982, review of Journey to an 800 Number, p. 133; March, 1986, review of Up from Jericho Tel, p. 131; May, 1990, review of Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, p. 216; September, 1992, review of Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdales, p. 16; November, 1996, review of The View from Saturday, p. 103; June, 2004, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 448.

Horn Book, March-April, 1967, Ruth Hill Viguers, review of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, pp. 206-207; September-October, 1967, Ruth Hill Viguers, review of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, p. 595; July-August, 1968, E.L. Konigsburg, "Newbery Award Acceptance," pp. 391-395; September-October, 1973, Paul Heins, review of A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, pp. 466-467; May-June, 1982, review of Journey to an 800 Number, pp. 289-290; May-June, 1986, Ethel R. Tweitchell, review of Up from Jericho Tel, p. 327; January-February, 1997, Roger Sutton, review of The View from Saturday, p. 60; July-August, 1997, Laurie Konigsburg Todd, "E.L. Konigsburg," pp. 415-417; November-December, 2000, Peter D. Sieruta, review of Silent to the Bone, p. 756; March-April, 2004, Peter D. Sieruta, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 184.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 1967, review of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, p. 740; December 15, 2003, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 1451; August 15, 2007, review of The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World.

New York Times Book Review, November 5, 1967, Alice Fleming, review of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, p. 44; November 19, 2000, Roger Sutton, "In the Blink of an Eye," p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, April 10, 1967, review of Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, p. 80; July 19, 1976, review of Father's Arcane Daughter, p. 13; April 25, 1986, review of Up from Jericho Tell, p. 80; July 22, 1996, review of The View from Saturday, p. 242; September 6, 1999, review of Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, p. 106; September 13, 1999, review of Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's, p. 86; April 12, 2004, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 25; July 30, 2007, review of The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, p. 82.

Saturday Review, November 9, 1968, E.L. Konigsburg, "A Book Is a Private Thing," pp. 45-46.

School Library Journal, September, 1975, Shirley M. Wilton, review of The Second Mrs. Giaconda, p. 121; May, 1986, Roth S. Vose, review of Up from Jericho Tel, p. 93; March, 1990, Susan Hepler, review of Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, p. 208; October, 1991, Starr LaTronica, review of Samuel Todd's Book of Great Inventions, p. 98; September, 1992, Judith Gloyer, review of Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdales, p. 206; October, 1993, Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, review of T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit, p. 124; September, 1996, Julie Cummins, review of The View from Saturday, p. 204; January, 2004, Cindy Darling Codell, review of The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place, p. 130; September, 2007, Renee Steinberg, review of The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World, p. 202.

Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 1993, Rachel Axelrod, review of T-Backs, T-Shirts, COAT, and Suit, p. 254.

Washington Post Book World, November 5, 1967, Polly Goodwin, review of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, p. 22.