The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

This is the set I'd like to own! All in a boxcar with magnetic closures! 

In the name of decluttering, I've long thrown away most of my childhood artefacts, but there is a sketchbook that has retained its well-deserved spot in my memorabilia bin. It is filled with cartoon-like drawings of a family of sisters, aged about 4 to 16, on their travels around Australia in a caravan. There isn't much of a plot (save for the beginning, where the sisters set out) which is mainly about the sisters visiting various destinations which I visited and loved, or which I would have liked to visit. My source of inspiration for these sketches is obvious. My grandma has lived in Australia since I was seven, and I was blessed to have made several trips to visit her with my family in my childhood years. I suppose those sketches were my way of reliving again and again those wonderful memories, though - why were there only sisters? And what happened to the parents? As a little artist (blush) I remember trying to figure these questions out - and blithely concluded that it was because I didn't like   (or know how) to draw boys or adults. Even on hindsight, that seems true! I also remember, prior to those trips, flipping through travel brochures brought home by my parents. In particular, there were car rental brochures on campervan rental - thus began my fascination. 

So when I stumbled upon The Boxcar Children more than 25 years later, and realised that this was a story about some siblings who at some point lived in a boxcar, I was curious - very curious. 

As I started that first book in the series, I found myself reading on at first out of a curious amusement, with a kind of disbelief at how the four orphan children could get by as they embarked on their journey of escape and survival. They did, however, and won my heart at every turn of the page. 

As a child, I remember making my "escapes" all so often to worlds so unreal and impossible to me as my life then meant - such as Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood. The attraction were characters such as Silky the fairy and Moonface, and out-of-this-world lands atop the faraway tree which await. There were also Enid Blyton's (again) Famous Five series, which brought me on adventures along with the children.

What The Boxcar Children has to offer is quite different from these sorts of escape. Stepping into the world of the Boxcar Children is to step into a simpler, a more compassionate world - and that's just the sort of escape I need now.

When I found my adult-self oddly drawn into the quaint world of Boxcar Children, I knew that I had found a treasure. Let me attempt to say why:

Children with 21st Century Competencies

The Boxcar children - Henry, Benny, Jessie and Violet are "fine children", as Grandfather would say. Despite the fact that they are characters in a book first published in 1924, I could see in them so many of the qualities ("21st century competencies) we now say we need to develop in our children to prepare them for an uncertain future. Finding their way and surviving on their escape journey, and eventually setting up home in an abandoned boxcar, they demonstrated resilience. Among them, they had all the practical skills needed to survive without the usual conveniences and comforts. Being the eldest, Henry sought out odd jobs to earn some money, and demonstrated such responsibility and diligence that he won the favour of his employer. Not having much in their boxcar home, they made the most of what simple provisions they could find, even rummaging in a dump for necessities, and showed contentment and joy in appreciating the simple blessings. Most of all, they showed love for one another, keeping together, caring for and giving in to one another constantly. They are everything I wish my children to be. 

Providence

It is too easy, in a world of modern conveniences and comforts, to become blind to what God is providing for us moment by moment. The Boxcar children's journey seemed to speak to me as though a parable. Almost impossibly, they receive just what they need at each turn of the road - a place to live in the abandoned boxcar, complete with a spring and "refrigerator" nearby, Henry's employer who watches out for him, a watchdog, wild blueberries, and finally, the cherry-on-top, the best grandfather they could ever have asked for. As did the Boxcar children, we receive from the hand of providence daily. Only, we may not realise it. 

The Gospel

In this story, we have children who start off full of misgivings about their grandfather, and therefore do their best to avoid being found by him. As for Grandfather Alden, he seeks them out, and through the intervention of a father figure, Dr Moore, finds them, and takes them home to live with him in a "big house". In the subsequent volumes, they find themselves in all sorts of adventures, often while travelling with Grandfather Alden, where there is the opportunity to help someone, somewhere. With Grandfather Alden's help, they always succeed in doing so. This narrative reminds me so much of the gospel - where we start off alienated from God the father, but with the intervention of Jesus Christ, end up being not only reconciled to God, but recipients of a glorious inheritance as his beloved children. It is adventure after adventure from then, where He takes us on His missions to show His love to those who do not yet know Him. 

Food and Housekeeping

Well, I've always loved the descriptions of food in children's books - from the cucumber and potted meat sandwiches packed by the Famous Five on their adventures, to the exploding toffee shocks and pop cakes in the Faraway Tree. Reading The Boxcar Children, I found myself thinking that Gertrude C. Warner must have loved to cook (as Jessie and I do), to have included such careful and insightful details on how certain dishes were cooked. At Surprise Island, for example, the method for cooking buttered clams: wash clams six times, boil them in a kettle, save clam water and distribute into bowls, before eating clams by dipping each into clam water and melted butter. There was also the very odd concoction Violet had made for Aunt Jane - orange juice with a raw, beaten egg! All this, and Jessie's (and no doubt, Gertrude C. Warner's) excellent homemaking skills - a very cozy feel is evoked. The food prepared and eaten by the children are so well-loved that there's even a cookbook celebrating the food they ate! 

Love the domestic bliss evoked by this gathering around the fire. (Illustrated by Marguerite Davis, as published in the 1938 magazine edition, source here)

So it seems that the world of the Boxcar Children is not quite so odd or strange a world, being very much the same world as the one in which I live. Only, let me choose to view this world with wonder and gratitude, as they do.

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