Somewhere in my early teen years I came across a book called The
Boxcar Children.
This book, written by a first grade school teacher by the name of
Gertrude Chandler Warner, was aimed at children in grades 2-6
yet I can’t remember reading it as a younger child.
I must have stumbled across it at the local library near my home.
We never had books in our house growing up. My mother, who
didn’t make it too far in grade school, never read us story books.
I fell in love with the book and the story it told of 4 orphaned children who fled what they thought was a cruel grandfather although they had never met him. They found and made a home in an abandoned boxcar and thought they were being self sufficient when it was a doctor who the oldest boy was working for who was helping to supply odds and ends for them in addition to what the older boy was able to get on his own.
The grandfather had put an ad in the paper looking for his grandchildren but the doctor remained silent until one of the young girls got sick. The doctor then notifies the grandfather of the situation and when they meet this kind man they move in with him and he, being wealthy, moves the boxcar to his backyard for them.
There are so many ways I enjoyed this book. Although not a negative word is said about the children’s decision to run away from their circumstances, I sense the stubbornness in them ~ one that I also was familiar with growing up. Yet, the way the book tells the story, it was more about the children learning and being given opportunity to work things out for themselves.
I read the series of these books to my boys while they were growing up.
Sometimes, as an “older” adult in need of sanity in this world, I’ll go back and get the 1st book and re-read it a few times.
Do you have a favorite children’s book?
