The Boxcar Children

The Boxcar Children is a children's literary franchise originally created and written by American writer and first-grade school teacher, Gertrude Chandler Warner. Today, the series includes well over 100 titles. The series is aimed at readers in grades 2-6.

Originally published in 1924 by Rand McNally and reissued in 1942 by Albert Whitman & Company, the novel 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. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named the original book one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children." The original book was one of the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time in a 2012 poll by School Library Journal.

In the subsequent books, the children encounter many adventures and mysteries in their neighborhood or at the locations they visit with their grandfather. The majority of the books are set in locations the children are visiting over school holidays such as summer vacation or Christmas break. Only the first 19 stories were written by creator Warner. Other books in the series have been written by other writers, but always feature the byline "Created by Gertrude Chandler Warner". The recent books in the series are set in the present day, whereas most of the original books were set in the 1940s and 1950s.