Last spring I was searching for reading curriculum ideas, after spending the school year piecing together a reading program that included several grade level workbooks and some high interest books, mostly Magic School Bus. I ran across several programs that used The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner as part of their curriculum, usually at about the 4th grade level.

Just seeing the name of this book brought back a flood of memories. I was in 3rd grade, with my favorite elementary school teacher, Miss Lillie. (It was her last name, but it made her all the more memorable that it was such a sweet sounding name.) She was the first young teacher I had ever had, and was probably the youngest one in our small rural school. Because of that she had an enthusiasm and an energy level that attracted us all to her.

Every day after lunch and recess, we’d have quiet time where we would put our heads on our desks, close our eyes and she would read us a chapter of a book. It was then that I was introduced to The Boxcar Children.

The book had a huge impact on my 3rd grade year. I spent many a recess playing Boxcar Children with my friends. And all that summer, I hauled treasures to my makeshift tree house in a hedgerow at the back of our nearest field, pretending that the tree was really a boxcar and I was able to recreate the adventures the four Alden children had there.

So I went to the library for a copy of this book to share with LuLu last spring. She grumbled, as she often does at many reading books (except for those about science). “It’s boring,” she whined. So, I thought, perhaps it is. After all, it was written in 1942.

But for some reason I pulled it back off the shelf last week and suggested we read it now. After minimal grumbling, LuLu started to read. The fact the children were orphans (I had long forgotten) immediately sucked her into the story. And their survivalist determination and creative independence has captured her imagination just like it did mine all those years ago.

Today, she decided to take an overgrown cucumber from our garden and fashion it into a “drinking gourd”. Then, as she pondered the use of the this gourd, she said, “Mom, why didn’t the Boxcar Children just use gourds for cups, rather than having to clean the rust off of old cups from the dum?.” And just as quickly she answered her own question, “Because they didn’t have a knife to carve the gourds until after they went to the dump.”

I’ve been watching her mind wrap around the characters in this book like never before in her reading career. She’s thinking about their next moves and fascinated with the cleaver way they care for themselves. She even convinced me that we should co-read another chapter of it again tonight, at bedtime, instead of just reading it for school.

To be able to share something so special to me as the memory of the Boxcar Children with LuLu is the type of thing that typical parents of typical children might take for granted. But it’s one of the special blessings that makes parents of special kids leap for joy.

Reading curriculum link:

Learning Language Arts through Literature