2019 Reprint of 1924 First Edition. Illustrated with Original Color Drawings. Reprint of the text and color illustrations of the First Edition of 1924. The text of this edition is different than later “sanitized” editions. The Box-Car Children tells the story of four orphaned children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. 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 named the original book 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.
GERTRUDE CHANDLER WARNER was born in 1890 in Putnam, Connecticut, where she later taught school. She wrote The Boxcar Children because she had often imagined how delightful it would be to live in a caboose or freight car. Encouraged by the book’s success, she went on to write eighteen more stories about the Alden children.
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