Remember the first time you heard the story of the Boxcar Children? It was amazing how they gathered the things they needed to survive and worked as a team. Did you ever wonder what happened in their lives to challenge them to be so self-reliant?
The wonderful Patricia MacLachlan has created the heartfelt and homespun back story for this special family. When we meet the Alden family, times are good. Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny know they are safe, loved and happy together on the family farm. It's springtime with chores to be done and a late snowfall. The snowdrifts capture a family struggling with hard times and send their car off the road. The Alden family takes them in even though it means everything will be spread a bit thinner.
As long as the car has not been repaired, the two families knit themselves together and the children find adventures and games to play. This is a story of friendship, of warmth, of joy and sharing until life steps in and steals away the good fortune.
Change lurks around the corner in every life and sometimes it's change we choose or create and even embrace and sometimes it's change we do not expect and would not write on our list of dreams and hopes. Savor the warmth and the love and save it for the hard times. The Alden children will be turning in the direction of their boxcar and bringing with them all the memories and resiliency they've created and developed on Fair Meadow Farm.
Ages 7-10 978-0807566169
Recommended by: Barb
