A children's book about the Cloisters?

January 31, 2008 7:40 PM

[children's book filter]: Help me (Ms. Umbú) remember the title of a children's book that features the cloisters in NYC!

I have a strong but vague recollection of reading a book when I was a kid in which the characters go to the Cloisters museum in NYC. It sounded so cool, that, years later, when I finally when to New York for the first time, I made it a priority to go to the Cloisters. But, of course, I no longer have any idea what the book was! At first I thought it was "From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" or "Remember me to Harold Square," so I just re-read those, and it's not them! I'm not having any luck googling or searching Amazon. So, does anyone out there know of a children's book (not a picture-book, but more like juvenile or YA fiction) where the characters go to the cloisters and there's a nice vivid description of them that would inspire you to want to visit yourself???

posted by umbú to writing & language (6 answers total)

Could it have been the Babysitters Club Super Special when they went to New York?

(Totally embarrassed but it made me want to go to the Cloisters!)
posted by sugarfish at 8:23 PM on January 31, 2008

You would probably remember that the book has lesbians in it, but the most memorable Cloisters scenes I've read are in Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden.
posted by Jeanne at 8:31 PM on January 31, 2008

That is totally the Babysitter's Club. Mallory went to the museum as part of some art class she was taking, maybe? I seem to remember her drawing little animals around the walls in her sketches. The Amazon reviews have some more detail about the book and seem to support my memory.
posted by MadamM at 11:49 PM on January 31, 2008

it would be totally logical that Madeline L'Engle's Young Unicorns would feature the Cloisters (given the unicorn tapestry) but the closest it gets is the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Could that be it maybe?

Also, there was a Magic Treehouse Book ("Blizzard of the Blue Moon") that has a lot of action at the Cloisters, but unless you skipped from being a child to an adult in the last year, I'm guessing that's not it.
posted by nangua at 1:15 AM on February 1, 2008

there's also a mention of the Cloisters in Night Kites by M.E. Kerr, but Google Book Search doesn't show the next page, so I don't know if it blooms to a full fledged description
posted by nangua at 1:22 AM on February 1, 2008

There was a lovely short story serialized over months in Cricket magazine where a boy visits the Cloisters, falls asleep in one of the rooms, and wakes up inside the Hunting of the Unicorn. It was written at middle-school level but did have realistic line drawings on most pages. The most striking scene in it is after he awakes and wanders around looking at a world where everything is made out of thread sewn in exquisite detail.
posted by nonane at 4:57 AM on February 1, 2008