The Boxcar Children is a children's book series originally created and written by the American first-grade school teacher Gertrude Chandler Warner. Today, the series includes more than 160 titles, with more being released every year. The series is aimed at readers in grades 2–6.
Originally published in 1924 by Rand McNally (as The Box-Car Children) and reissued in a shorter revised form in 1942 by Albert Whitman & Company, The Boxcar Children tells the story of four orphaned children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden. They create a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar in the forest. They eventually meet their grandfather, who is a wealthy and kind man (although the children had believed him to be cruel). The children decide to live with the grandfather, who moves the beloved boxcar to his backyard so the children can use it as a playhouse. The book was adapted as the film The Boxcar Children in 2014 and the sequel novel Surprise Island was released as a film in 2018. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the original book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 the original novel was ranked among the all-time "Top 100 Chapter Books", or children's novels, in a survey published by School Library Journal.
In the subsequent books, the children encounter many adventures and mysteries in their neighborhood or at the locations they visit with their grandfather. The majority of the books are set in locations the children are visiting over school holidays such as summer vacation or Christmas break. Only the first 19 stories were written by creator Warner. Other books in the series have been written by other writers, but always feature the byline "Created by Gertrude Chandler Warner". While the Alden children age in Warner's books, and remain younger in the ones published after her death, each book is set around its publication date.
Plot summary of the original novel
The original Boxcar Children novel tells a story of four orphaned Alden children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. Not wishing to live with their hard-hearted grandfather, whom they have never met because of his disapproval of their parents' marriage, the children strike out on their own following their parents' death. On a cold night, the children stop at a bakery to ask for food, where they are invited to stay for the night. However, when they overhear the baker and his wife are planning to keep the three older children as labor and send Benny to an orphanage, the children decide to escape and flee to the woods instead.
There they sleep on some pine needles. But Jessie then sees it is about to rain, and frantically searches for some shelter. At that point, she finds an abandoned boxcar and takes her siblings to it. They all renovate it into their new home. They find useful items such as kitchenware at the junkyard, use a stream for water, and collect blueberries for their meals. They also adopt a stray dog that they name Watch. Realizing they cannot live on water and blueberries, Henry walks to a nearby town called Silver City for work. There he meets a young doctor, Dr. Moore, who hires Henry for odd jobs, often paying him in spare food and clothing as well as money. Suspecting that Henry is not telling the full truth about himself, Dr. Moore follows Henry home in secret and sees the children's living conditions. He decides that they are safe for now and that he should allow Henry to tell the truth when he feels comfortable. Dr. Moore gifts Henry a hammer and Henry also takes a few nails from the doctor. With the tools, he and his siblings create a swimming pool and a dam in the stream. Henry also makes a cart for Benny.
Once, while Henry was working at Dr. Moore's house, Dr. Moore invites Henry to see the Field Day competition. He does not tell Henry that it is conducted by James Henry Alden etc., who is in fact the grandfather of the boxcar children. There, Henry gets to know about a Free-for-all race. Just for enjoyment, he also takes part in it. But then, Henry starts to run in his fastest pace and wins the race. He is awarded a silver cup and 25 dollars by James Henry Alden, his grandfather. But neither of them know that they are a family. Once Henry returns back to his boxcar, his siblings are very glad for him.
At some point, Benny's hair begin to grow, so Jessie cuts them with Violet's scissors. Benny in turn cuts Watch's hair and tries to make a 'J' symbol. This makes Jessie and Violet laugh very hard. However, Violet falls seriously ill. The siblings don't want to go to the hospital because of two reasons: