So spoilers for a children's mystery novel series from like (holy shit I just looked this up and the first book is from the 1920s with the sequals spanning from 1948-1996s)
What's my point?
My point in it's entirety is it is strange how the Box car kids started out as a decent stand alone novel about 4 orphans who decided to run away rather than live with this evil grandfather. The first book is all about the children figuring things out and trying to hide, only to end with the evil grandfather being a good loving guy who they all agree to live with.
A normal novel by all means, and seemingly meant to be a stand alone (might explain the 20 year gap between book 1 and book 2).
Then the sequels are all pseudo mystery novels where the kids are working together to solve problems.
It's a totally different series, just with the pre-established characters. And if you were anything like me growing up, you never questioned the huge tonal shift. The box car Children series is just the Box car children's series. Ignore the fact that the box car is totally irrelevant past book 1.
by MylastAccountBroke
38 Comments
That was the pilot
Yeah, it started as an original idea, but ended up being Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys commercial fiction.
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I ploughed through the first one and never read the rest because they seemed so different. Yeah that was a weird book. High stakes for a kids book, anxiety inducing with the older siblings having to find sustenance for the younger ones.
I think I maybe at least skimmed a few of the sequels and I remember they kept the boxcar out of nostalgia or something.
In hindsight, those kids had all the PTSD.
Ha you’re right, I never thought about it at all. I read a lot of them but really the first one is the only book I remember, too
I always loved the mysteries. Fun fact, the author was my great great great aunt (give or take a great) and she only wrote the first 19 books.
good ol box car children those were some of my first chapter books in first grade and you would have to take the reading test on computers to earn you pizza hut free pizzas but i don’t really remember anything about the storylines just that i use to love those books , wonder why they didnt make them into movies
Wow, did not expect to ever come across a BCC series post on here. Haven’t read them in sooo long but recently was at a Barnes and Noble checking the kids section to see if they still shelve those books in case I want to buy some for my soon-to-be-born child to read one day.
It’s been so long since I read them so I don’t think I’d ever noticed the tonal shift, but you’re right. The series easily could just start with Book 2 with them being established as mystery-solving kids. I guess the benefit to using established characters from a standalone book is you don’t need to spend much time explaining who each kids is, what they’re personality is like, etc because we learned all that in Book 1. But yeah, from Book 2 on there’s no need for them to have ever been concerned that their grandfather was a horrible man.
I have no clear memories of the boxcar children, all I know is that I love the boxcar children.
Yeah I recall loving the first book I’m not being a kid but I love reading about they’re just little day-to-day struggles, their life it was really interesting. Then it just kind of became a detective series and I remember I stopped reading it but young me shared your feelings !
Honestly never even knew there were sequels! The original was one of my favorite books as a kid, I still have such vivid images in my head of the creek, where they would keep the milk cold. Strange what sticks in your head!
It’s a little odd, but I don’t think that matters so much. I loved those books as a kid and honestly, they just helped me develop a love for reading. Those types of books (Boxcar Children, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc) were really just there to help kids develop reading skills and have a mildly entertaining story in the process. I should probably go back and reread the original, though. It might be a fun trip down memory lane.
I know nothing about them other than my nephew was all about them for a few years. They were his first “chapter books” and he read them like crazy. Reminded me of when I got into *The Hardy Boys*.
Sure, from a craft perspective it’s silly, but from a business perspective it makes sense. People like to read books about characters they already know and like, and by authors they already know and like (hence long series with ghostwritten books). Same reason people read fanfiction whose plot and premise have little or nothing to do with the source material.
So if the first Boxcar book was popular, it makes sense to publish sequels to it. But the plot from the first book was already resolved in the first book, so they had to come up with new plots, enough plots to sustain many subsequent sequels, but standalone plots so that the books could be read in different orders, and mysteries are a convenient way to accomplish that. And there was already a history of children’s mystery series doing well, like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. So it makes sense that the publisher was like “Let’s turn the Boxcar Children into the next Nancy Drew series.”
Ok this explains why I had this vague conception about the boxcar children solving mysteries but then when I read the first book as a kid it wasn’t really about that at all
I thought that was so weird when I was a kid.
I wish my gen X ass had access to a boxcar with a cold stream running in it. Being outside all damned day would’ve been alot easier if I could’ve stayed cool…
I guess children mystery novels were pretty big at the time.
You know the first one was also revised to make it more modern. I think the original was from the 1920s and was revised in the 50s. Mystrey is a huge genre. It was a fun genre, although i only remember the orignial and one when they were on bikes
The old box car is basically a play house in their backyard after the first book, yeah.
That being said I don’t know how long I could have lasted worrying about these homeless children living in an abandoned train carriage.
I remember liking the first book as a kid and then being really disappointed that the rest of the books aren’t them just living their lives in that box car.
I’ve never really liked the solving mysteries drama and in a similar vein I found an anime I really enjoyed because it focused around apothecary and then half way through I realized I’ve been tricked into watching a mystery series lol.
I loved them. You will notice that somewhere around book 20, there is another shift where there is suddenly always a “bad guy” in each mystery (the earlier books never had villains). That was when the series was taken over by ghostwriters.
The original was actually very different. The father was an alcoholic. I found it on Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42796/pg42796-images.html
I blame The Boxcar Children for my romantic notion of van life/tiny house living. 😆
i LOVED the first book and would make my little siblings play boxcar with me. was also into playing little house in the prairie.
i also loved the mystery books, as i was super big into Nancy Drew. but i did notice the shift as a kid. i still think about it all the time and i’m glad i’m not the only one.
I loved the boxcar children. To me the first book set the scene for the second and subsequent books to take place. They always showed capable children without adult involvement.
1920’s Box Car Children – off grid, tiny house, teamwork and community involved – we’ve come full circle. I loved the series when I was a child.
It’s funny, as a kid the first Boxcar Children book I read was definitely not the first one in the series. I read most of the series out of order, just grabbing whatever books I could find at my library. Then one birthday I got a boxed set of the first twenty or so books, and read them in order for the first time. I remember being so perplexed by how different the first book was!
Why did I think this series was about mystery-solving homeless kids
My mom loved those books as a kid and introduced them to me as a child too. I loved them, but I also remember rereading the first one sooo many times. I was entranced with the idea of the kids’ little boxcar home and how they made do living in the woods on the edge of town. It seemed magical.
I still am not over how that ate bread and milk like cereal
welcome to the bizarre times of the Hardy boys, Tom Swift, Tom Swift Jr, and Nancy Drew.
I still want to get a cracked pink cup tattoo
Mid-20th century America was a well known crime wasteland. Feckless police not doing their jobs.
That is why the youth had to do their own Policing. Leaders like Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and eventually Boxcar Children paved the way for a more decent and kind society.
The Overdue podcast does an [episode on the Boxcar Children](https://overduepodcast.com/episodes/2021/9/20/ep-494-the-boxcar-children-by-gertrude-chandler-warner) that addresses the switch (and is hilarious).
If you think that’s bad, you should check out what happens in the Tarzan sequels
Now that I’m a mom I side eye Grandfather. He didn’t have a relationship with his grandkids because he “didn’t like” their mother?
I love stories where children are basically on their own because all the adults in their lives are dead, incompetent, or dangerous. I loved them as a kid and I still do.
Anyone else also remember Dicey’s Song and that series of books? Dicey was a preteen or young teen if I recall correctly, and she had a couple of younger siblings to take care of. They went on a long walk together, hiding from adults and pretending not to be on their own.