Box Car kids are still relevant today! My kids love them.

books:


	• Surprise Island (Boxcar Children) Gertrude Chandler Warner Albert Whitman & Company, 1989 - 178 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

So many surprises!

When I say "So many surprises," I really mean it! For example, the children find Indian artifacts, when they never thought they would. Benny and his friend found a mini-cave. I like this book because it had so many surprises!

Great series!

My kids, 9, 6, and 3, love these books, which is a surprise since they don't contain any electronics, fantasy adventures, or magic. They beg me to read "just one more chapter!" everytime. So refreshing to read about kids interacting with nature and who are so polite to adults. Definitely a good purchase.

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A fun book for kids!!

The Boxcar Children #2 Suprise Island is a great book for kids and others 15 and under. My favorite part was when the kids found Indian Point and all the artifacts hidden there. After they found all the artifacts they made there own museum. My other favorite part was when the dogs raced each other. When they had to leave they weren't very disspointed because they knew that they were going to come back.The author is such a realistic writer that when you read this book you think that you are there with them.

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Box Car kids are still relevant today! My kids love them.

Growing up in the same town as Ms. Chandler, I was lucky enough to go to the library to hear her read her stories. I loved them. I wasn't sure if my kids 30 years later would love them as much as I did. I think we've read the Boxcar #1 at least 6 times. The kids just love the idea of setting up a home, without adults, and taking care of themselves. Who doesn't love the pink cracked cup and the stream cooler. I wasn't sure if Surprise Island would have the same kind of magic. It did! Not only did it have a lot of the same elements as the first one, my boys loved the kids finding Indian relics, and mystery of who Joe was and of course why can't they go into the yellow house? (read #3 for that one). It is so refreshing that a book written so many years ago can be relevant today, that you don't need potty humor,TV show references or violence to engage children's imaginations.

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Generally okay, but mixed

Warner's second in the Boxcar series is pretty much more of the same. Gone however is any real novelty or discovery.

This time around it gets a little creepy by modern, postfeminist standards. The girls delight in nonstrenuous domesticity, whereas the boys do the heavy lifting and shop work. Henry assumes the role of Father Knows Best autocrat for the little family, the rich grandfather being mostly absent again.

Not too surprising, given that Warner's generation also made the infamous mental hygiene classroom films and social engineering initiatives of the post-WWII era.

If traditional, rigidly-defined, sex-linked roles taught by example are okay with readers' parents, go for it. Progressives and modern liberals will surely be appalled. The enigmatic character of Joe could never be written into modern stories.

The artwork in this edition of Surprise Island is wretched, nothing at all like the first book's.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Read by Phyllis Newman
two cassettes / two hours 35 mins.

Adventure abounds as the Alden children spend a summer living on their grandfather's island. They display a wealth of confidence in their ability to face life's everyday challenges armed only with their clever inventiveness and the support of eachother. Few subjects are as sure to capture the imaginations of children as the idea of living on their own. A hint of suspense is woven through the story until the mysterious true identity of Joe the handyman is finally revealed.

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