Today I had a flashback of a book I read when I was a kid. It’s a book for adolescents, and the book is about 2 teenage siblings, a boy and a girl. who run away and live in a museum in NYC. They take baths in the museum fountains, and fish the change from the bottom of the fountains for their eating expenses. BTW, I read this book back in the mid-70s, but I believe it was written well before then. Does anyone know?
It’s by E.L.Konigsburg and I think it’s called From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. She’s definitely the author and all of her books are worth reading.
Yes, I think thats it.
What a great idea for a thread! Here’s a few more.
The first is kind of a ghost-type story, and features a couple of kids trying to solve the mystery of a haunted trail, where the sound of phantom horses is often heard. I believe the plot featured the discovery of a ruby mine. Actually, I suspect the title for this one actually was The Mystery of the Haunted Trail, but it seems like I ran across a book with that title not long ago, and it was a completely different story. Am I crazy, or was there another book with this title? The things I remember most were the disembodied hoofbeats and the rubies.
There was another that had to do with deep-sea adventurers in a high-tech boat, exploring the sunken pirate city of Port Royal.
The third I remember involves a girl trying to locate a hidden treasure, a golden crucifix as I recall. At the climax of the story she traces the item to an old grave, and has to force herself to reach inside the muddy grave itself! Brrr, chilling. I’ll feel pretty stupid if the title is actually The Golden Crucifix, as I see that there is a book by this title for sale on line (but with no details provided). Is there a resource anyone can suggest for running down these old kids’ books by plot synopsis? My e-library skills are sadly wanting.
Terrifel, the only description I could find for “The Golden Crucifix” (assuming you mean the book by John Rae) is: “Four girls run through a storm into an unfamiliar world”.
I don’t know if that is enough of a description for you to identify it.
You are in the right place, though, for finding this kind of information! 
Dopers have a pretty good track record for this sort of thing, you will probably get an answer quickly.
One other source for finding books (especially children’s books) by plot is Loganberry Books. Check out their “Stump the Bookseller” section. Unfortunately, to actually submit a stumper costs $2, but it may be worth it if you can’t find it anywhere else, and the Dopers don’t happen to come through for you this time.
Thank you MisterThyristor!
No, the book I recall doesn’t sound much like the capsule description. Although it did have a storm in it, and at least one girl, so I may investigate anyway. Loganberry Books sounds like a good place to start. Two bucks seems like a small price to pay for peace of mind.
Let me try one out on you. I’ve expended some considerable effort - and even a small amount of money - trying to find this book. It’s non-fiction, a travelogue written by an Australian journalist who took some time off to hitch hike through the Americas. He started in Vancouver, hitchhiked North to Alaska (including accompanying the mayor of Prince George, BC, to the opening ceremonies for the Alaska Highway), where he stayed for awhile, acquired a puppy, then hitchhiked south again. He went East across the United States, then came back West again, and down through Central America (at some point he was travelling with a couple of guys who had a bus, and there was a train involved in the central American part, too) to South America. Eventually he ended up in Rio de Janeiro for Carnival.
The events - the opening of the Alaska Highway, specifically - date the actual activities to the 40s, but that doesn’t, of course, put a date on the book. I read it while at University in the 90s, and the copy I had was a library rebind that I picked up off a shelf full of books a professor was giving away, so it didn’t offer any particular physical clues. I can remember neither the author nor the title.
What book am I thinking of?