The Boxcar Children Analysis

It's not quite a van down by the river, but it's close. The book is named for the abandoned boxcar in which the kids make their home, so it makes sense that it's the most important part of the sett...

The book's third-person narrator is an unknown speaker whose old-fashioned phrasing and simple language lend the narration a sort of singsong, storybook quality. From a remove, the narrator tells u...

The Boxcar Children was penned by a first-grade teacher who was specifically writing for kids, which places it firmly in the children's lit category. One way that she appealed to young people was b...

The Boxcar Children is a curious combination of practical and fanciful. On one level, the Alden children are remarkably levelheaded. Henry and Jessie work hard to take care of their siblings. They...

The author of The Boxcar Children was a first-grade teacher, and one of her goals in writing the book was to make it both entertaining and easy to read. Her writing style has a lot in common with b...

The Boxcar Children is the first volume in a long series of mysteries, but the book's title isn't one of them. It's very literal: The story is about four children who make their home in a boxcar. T...

Mr. Alden, aka Grandfather, arranges a big surprise for the Alden kids in the final chapter: He's moved their beloved boxcar into one of his gardens. Everything's the same as it was in the woods, e...

It doesn't get much easier than this, folks. The author of The Boxcar Children was a first-grade teacher, and she specifically designed the book so it would be easy to read. Simple sentences, words...

Meet the Most Cheerful Orphans EverFour children, the Alden siblings, are on the run from a "mean" old grandfather they've never met. Their parents are dead, and their worldly possessions amount to...

Gertrude Chandler Warner became a teacher because she was called to service during World War I. (Source) Fiction wasn't the only means Warner used to teach children good habits—she also used a go...

Twilight this ain't, people. Fans of close encounters and steamy situations aren't going to find much—and by much, we mean anything at all—in this sweet story about perfect orphans. In fact, th...