The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner | Book Review

Book Review of The Boxcar Children
The Children’s Book Review

The Boxcar Children

Written by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Ages 6+ | 154 Pages

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company | ISBN-13: 9780486838519

What to Expect: Orphans and Adventure

Author Gertrude Chandler Warner was a school teacher when she began to write about the Boxcar Children—she went on to write 19 books in the series. Other authors have gone on to write more about the Boxcar Children, and there are now well over 100 books in the series. There is a museum inside a red boxcar in honor of Gertrude and this remarkable book series. There is also an animated movie of The Boxcar Children.

Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans. The only person left to care for them is their grandfather, who they believe to be a very unkind man. The kids take shelter in a bakery, and they overhear that the baker plans to keep all the kids except the youngest; Benny will be sent to a children’s home. They run from the bakery and discover an abandoned boxcar in the forest, which they make a home. Henry, the oldest of the siblings, finds work to make enough money to buy food and other necessary items. 

They do pretty well living alone with no grown-ups to help until Violet falls ill, and they must take her to see a doctor. The doctor recognizes their last name and remembers a notice he had read in the newspaper: James Henry Alden is offering $5,000 to the person that finds his four missing grandchildren. Will the doctor give the kids over to their grandfather? What will happen to the children? Is their life living in the boxcar about to be derailed?

The Boxcar Children is an adventure from start to finish. You’ll want to ride the pages all the way to the end. All aboard! 

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About the Author

Gertrude Chandler Warner was born in Putnam, Connecticut, on April 16, 1890, to Edgar and Jane Warner. Her family included a sister, Frances, and a brother, John. From the age of five, she dreamed of becoming an author. She wrote stories for her Grandfather Carpenter, and each Christmas she gave him one of these stories as a gift. Today, Ms. Warner is best remembered as the author of The Boxcar Children Mysteries.

What to Read Next if You Love The Boxcar Children

The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island, by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren

Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective, by Donald J. Sobol

The Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks

Bianca Schulze reviewed The Boxcar Children. Discover more books like The Boxcar Children by reading our reviews and articles tagged with orphans and adventure.

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