Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.
When my daughter was younger, I read her several of Gertrude Chandler Warner’s books from The Boxcar Children series. These chapter books were well loved stories full of adventure. What’s exciting now is that Albert Whitman & Company has adapted these classic stories in the Boxcar Children Early Reader Set to make them accessible to beginning readers who aren’t yet ready to tackle chapter books.
Description of The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set
The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set is a set of four books that corresponds with the first four books in Gertrude Chandler Warner’s original series. The titles include The Boxcar Children, Surprise Island, The Yellow House Mystery, and Mystery Ranch. There are more books in the works for 2020, so they’ll soon be a total of eight books in all.
The books are available in hardcover and paperback. We reviewed the hardcover versions and the quality is excellent. I know they’ll endure a lot of use.
You may find that the books are lengthy for your beginning reader. The first one is 48 pages and may take several days to read. The text isn’t divided into chapters like some early reader books, so using a bookmark will be handy. If you’re reading the stories aloud, like I did to my son, you can get through two in one sitting.
What I Love About the Boxcar Children Early Reader Set
Engaging to Read
I’ve read many books for beginning readers and it’s rare to find ones as engaging as the Boxcar Children Early Reader Set. The stories are full of mystery and adventure. The action in these books kept my son interested from cover to cover.
I like how some of the sentences end with ellipses. They entice your child to turn the page and keep reading.
Here’s an example
Good Dialogue & Sentence Length for Beginners
The dialogue is simple and the sentences are just the right length. The sentence variety keeps the books from being boring to read, as is the case with many early reader books.
Powerful Illustrations
I love the illustrations in the Boxcar Children Early Reader Set. They are bold, colorful and help support the reader with clues about what the text says.
The illustrations are wonderful at portraying the tone and mood of the action and characters. Take a close look at the illustration below. Can you sense how exhausted and disheartened the children are feeling?
If your child watches the DVDs, they’ll see connections between the illustrations in the books and the movies.
What Are “Time to Read” Books?
The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set is part of the Time to Read program. This program targets early readers and breaks down books into three different levels. The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set is Level Two.
Level One: Beginning to read
- Large text type
- Basic vocabulary
- Illustrations that support the text
- Repetition
Level Two: Reading with Help
- Simple dialogue
- illustrations that support the text
- Short sentences
- Stories that are engaging
Level Three: Reading Independently
- Longer sentences
- Harder vocabulary
- Short paragraphs
- More challenging story concepts
Summaries of the First Four Books in the Series
The Boxcar Children
The first book in the series is always the best because everything is new. In The Boxcar Children you are introduced to the Alden family. The opening sentences captured my son’s attention right away. He was hooked on the first page!
One night four children stood outside of a bakery. The children were hungry and needed a place to sleep. They did not have a home.
The Boxcar Children, page one
Why don’t they have a home? It’s nighttime. Thinking about this from a child’s perspective is terrifying. My son wanted to find out what would happen next.
The four children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans in search of a home. They’re afraid their grandfather, whom they’ve never met and they mistakenly think is mean, will find them. So they are out on their own trying to care for themselves.
One night when the weather turns sour, they discover an abandoned boxcar and take shelter. It becomes their refuge and they eventually make it a home with treasures they find at the dump. They even discover a new friend.
Henry, the older brother gets a job doing yard work for Dr. Moore to earn money for the family. But Dr. Moore is clever and realizes that Henry and his siblings must be the missing children described in the newspaper.
When Violet gets ill, Dr. Moore makes a plan that results in the children getting a new home and a relationship they never thought they’d have.
Surprise Island
This time the children stay on an island for the summer and take up residence in a barn. Under the distant supervision of Captain Daniel, they spend their time exploring the island, swimming, sailing, fishing, and collecting items to add to their museum.
With the help of their new friend, Joe, who works for Captain Daniel and teaches them how to dig like archeologists, they solve the mystery of the clamshell mountain.
In the end of this second book, there are more surprises in store when the children learn that Joe is more than just a caretaker on the island.
The Yellow House Mystery
The Aldens are back on Surprise Island with their grandfather and cousin Joe in this third book in the series. They learn that the old yellow house was built years ago by a man named Bill. He used to lived there on the island, but mysteriously disappeared shortly after their grandfather lent him money.
The children decide to investigate the house. The adventure begins when Benny finds a letter addressed to Bill inside the fireplace. Even though it’s been years since Bill disappeared, they follow Bear Trail, hoping to find clues to Bill’s whereabouts.
The children spend several days and nights traveling to Old Village, where the woman at the supply store suggested. They canoe across the lake, camp out in a tent, and stay at a lumber camp. The Alden children face some hardships along the journey. It’s not easy to portage canoes. And when one canoe flips over during a rain storm ruining their food, everyone looks discouraged.
In the end, Benny makes another discovery which leads them to solving the mystery of the owner of the yellow house.
Mystery Ranch
Henry, Jesse, Violet, and Benny are visiting their great-aunt Jane who isn’t doing well. She lives all alone on a big ranch in Wyoming. While on the train they Benny interacts with a man he later dubs, “Mystery Man,” foreshadowing a part he has yet to play in the story.
The children immediately take to their aunt. They do what they can to cheer her up. They clean the house, buy groceries, and share their dog Watch, hoping his cuddles will make Aunt Jane smile.
But Aunt Jane’s spirits are crushed by the weight of the ranch. She’s worried she won’t be able to afford it much longer and feels pressure to sell. The children step up their game and start helping with chores.
All the pieces come together in the end when the children discover how the strange rocks, a strange hut, and the strange “Mystery Man” are related. And Aunt Jane doesn’t have to feel lonely anymore.
Final Thoughts About The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set
I really enjoyed reading the Boxcar Children Early Reader Set to my kindergartener. Just before writing this review we picked up Mystery Ranch again, and I said, “I wonder if you can read any of the words in this book?”
He grabbed the book from my hands, turned to the first page, and started reading it. I was ecstatic! He read three pages of text before asking me to take over. I praised him up and down. I know he was proud of himself too.
My son got stuck on a few words, like “adventure,” “sighed,” and “neighbor.” But with my prompting, he was able to read them. I noticed he was using the picture cues to help him figure out other words in the text. These books are crafted to help beginning readers be successful.
We can’t wait to get the rest of the books in the series once they’re released!
Want to hear what others are saying about The Boxcar Children Early Reader Set? Check out these other reviews from members of the Homeschool Review Crew.
