A Bookworm's Tour Of the Big Apple

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At the museums that border the park, children will also meet old friends. Despite a sea change of renovations at the American Museum of Natural History, teenagers will recognize many of the old haunts of Holden Caulfield, protagonist of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, including the Indian canoe "as long as three goddam Cadillacs in a row." At the Children's Museum of Manhattan, beginning readers can walk right into their favorite Dr. Seuss stories and cook green eggs and ham, jump on the seven-hump Wump of Gump or climb into the Cat in the Hat's cleanup vehicle. And the staid Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the eastern flank of the park, was the hideout of runaways Claudia and Jamie Kincaid, who slept in a 16th century English bed, stashed their belongings in a Roman sarcophagus and behind a French tapestry, and solved the mystery surrounding a priceless statue. Their adventures are recounted in E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

There's lots more, but if you're tired from all this, stop at the cozy, old-fashioned Lexington Candy Shop luncheonette on Lexington Avenue and 83rd Street for a rest, a nice New York egg cream (favorite drink of Harriet, in Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, who lived on East 87th Street)...and a good book.