Lily: First things first… For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lily from Is it too early for a martini? Where have I been this entire time? I don’t know … exactly. But we’ll just stick with the option that got the most votes on the side bar survey: I was checking myself out in the mirror.
Lor: I prefer my theory that Lily is dead. Or was dead. Which brings me to my real point that Lily is undead making her the one and only zombie Snark Lady. Making her the coolest Snark Lady there is, even though she’s been dead for our first 24 posts. Mostly I like saying Lily is dead. LOL.
Lily: LOVE Lily Zombie! So, The Boxcar Children. What. A. Snoozefest. Seriously. I deserve a medal for reading this book TWICE. Yes, I read this book twice. Actually, at least four times, including the times I read it while growing up. And Lor gets a medal too, for reading the first chapter of the book.
Lor: No, you guys don’t understand. YOU. DON’T. UNDERSTAND.
For reading this book, what we really deserve is more along the lines a lifetime supply of zebra cakes. I mean, the first thing I noticed about this book was that, compared to some of the other kiddie lit I cover, the words were a lot smaller (like in length) but also a whole lot bigger (like in print size.) This was curious to me so I Wikipedia’d “The Boxcar Children.”
“Geared towards grades 2-6.”
CRAP. Geared towards the second grade?! How old are you in the second grade? Embryo? Fetus? 2? God, this will probably be painful.
Lily: Listen, I’m not hating on these kids… but they are messed up. Their parents die mysteriously. I say this because it’s never addressed. And then they don’t want their rich grandfather to find them because he’s supposedly mean. I like that they came to this conclusion. They’ve never met their grandfather. I learned a lesson: If you don’t know someone, then they’re mean.
Because of this, they decide to run away.
They first come across a bakery, where the baker and his wife want to adopt them, except for the youngest.
Lor: Basically this happens:
Homeless Kids: But we have money and just want some bread.
Baker Wife: EW I SAID.
Homless: Can we sleep here, on those benches? We’ll wash dishes and lug shit around for you because child labor laws don’t exist yet, or something.
Baker Wife: FREE LABOR YAY! But wait, where are your parents?
Homeless: Dead, yo. And we don’t like our grandpa. Shit. Maybe we shouldn’t have said that.
Baker Wife: Why don’t you like him?
Homeless: Well… see… he’s… got… stuff… we don’t like… Like a probably a house.
Lily: The baker’s wife thinks the older three kids, Violet, Henry and Jessie will make wonderful workers for the bakery. But she believes that Benny, the youngest Boxcar Child, is too young to work in the bakery.
The older kids overheard this so they decided to run away. Again.
But shit, these kids get whatever the fuck they want. I mean, I don’t know a million homeless kids, but I’m almost 100% sure if they knew they had a grandpappy with moolah, they wouldn’t be running away from him.
But okay… I’m being unfair.
Lor: No, you aren’t. I just wonder if after their parents died, they just ran away from the funeral. Or maybe they found both parents dead in their sleep at the same time and then just ran away from the house?
THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.
Lily: Maybe they killed their parents!
They’re kind of well off on their own. Henry works and brings in money for his siblings to be able to buy food. Judging by the book cover, he’s no more than 12 years old.
Lor: I guess, now is a good a time as any to actually introduce you to the kids and not just call them “the big one,” “the little one,” “the other little one,” or “that one with the hair and eyes.”
Henry – “big boy”
Jessie – “big girl”
Violet – “about 10”
Benny – “about 5”
Lily: Violet cooks whatever Henry buys. She also made a ladle out of a tin can and a wire! She’s crafty. I think she’s my fave.
Lor: She probably has a blog where she puts pictures of her crafty shit: homelessNcrafty.blogspot.com
Lily: And Jessie hems table cloths. I’m sure she does more, but it just seems she just hemmed a table cloth and made a teddy bear for Benny. Way to contribute, Bitch!
Everything goes downhill for the kids when Violet gets violently ill. Well, not really. But it sounds way more exciting than “she was shaking!” She was sick because these kids were living in a fucking metal can like tuna, in the middle of the woods with a dog that showed up out of nowhere. AND they were eating off of dishes they found at the dump. Of course she got sick.
Lor: Seriously. At first they were sleeping on leafy shit and ground-y shit.
Lily: Well, Henry was working for a doctor, who had seen an ad in the paper about 4 missing kids. Their rich grandpappy was looking for them. And was offering $5,000 to the person who found them! Well… Since Violet was probably going to die, Henry ran to the doctor so he could save Violet. And duh, of course he would save her.
Lor: I’m pretty sure I could’ve saved them with a bath and deworming medication. DR. LORRAINE IN THE HOUSE.
Lily: The doctor takes all the kids and the dog because he likes them. And so does his mom. BTW – what kind of a doctor lives with his mom? LOSAH.
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| Dr. Nick probably lives with his mom. |
Dr. Loser was a sneaky little bastard. He told Henry about some Field Day where Henry’s grandfather gave a $25 prize to the winner of a “free-for-all” race. And of course this asshole won. When the grandfather showed up at Dr. Loser’s house, Henry was like “yo, where have I seen this guy before”. And the doctor told him that was his grandfather. (No kidding, and it’s almost written like that, too).
Lor: This whole book is written like this: They walked to the road. The walked very far. Benny was awake. Then Benny fell asleep. Then Benny woke up. “I want water,” said Benny. Jessie laughed. Benny fell asleep again.
AND THEN LORRAINE SLIT HER WRISTS. It’s a sad day when you start craving the writing style of RL Stine. Hey, what’s the RL stand for anyways? No. Don’t tell me. I want to pretend it’s Recent Lover Stine. Yeaaaaah.
Lily: Anyways, all the kids like the grandfather, even Violet, who is like half dead/half alive. Lor: ZOMBIE.
Lily: And then Benny’s says out loud “He’s not cross!” Which I found funny. What kid do you know that can keep something to themselves?
The kids end up liking their grandfather, and they move in with him. Happily ever after. Lame.
I read somewhere that this series was a mystery series. And it had about 0.01% mystery. The kids heard a twig snap in the woods and got scared. They decided it was a rabbit. Turns out it was Dr. Loser.
Lor: I think from here on out they actually become mysteries. I mean, they can’t very much continue on being the homeless children when they aren’t homeless anymore, y’know?
Lily: I hope the next book I read in this series isn’t as boring.
Lor: Good luck. I’ve covered two Nancy Drews and both of them made me want to poke at my own liver. But, you find ways to entertain yourself. LIKE ZOMBIE PICTURES.
Next time: Grandpa Moneybags figures out a way to get rid of his grandchildren for an entire summer. Is it the best plan of ever? Find out in The Boxcar Children #2 – Surprise Island.
I’ll be covering The Box Car Children franchise. I first read these books when my idiot brother brought them home from school. I read one of them because I had nothing better to do since our dad said we couldn’t watch cartoons until him or my mom got home from work. And since then, I’ve had an irrational fear of homelessness and freight trains… and sometimes forests (thanks a lot, Frank!). This is probably why I still live with my mom while I’m engaged. Because the fiancé and I are very careless, might end up popping out babies and then they’ll have to live in the forest and no one would want to adopt all eleventy of them.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
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