The Box-Car Children

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 well over 150 titles. The series is aimed at readers in grades 2–6. Originally published in 1924 by Rand McNally (as The Box-Car Children), The Boxcar 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.