The Garden Thief

The Boxcar Children #130

by Gertrude Chandler Warner (Creator)

Grandfather's friend, Mr. Yee, has broken his arm and can't tend to his beloved vegetable plot in the community garden. The Alden children gladly offer their services to help him with his prize-winning veggies. But they soon learn something mysterious is afoot at the community garden. Vegetables go missing, and it appears someone is intentionally vandalizing the garden plots. Luckily for the local community gardeners, the Boxcar Children are on the case!

Genres: Mystery, Audiobook, Childrens, Realistic Fiction, Middle Grade, Fiction, Gardening

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Gertrude Chandler Warner was born in Putnam, Connecticut, on April 16, 1890, to Edgar and Jane Warner. Her family included a sister, Frances, and a brother, John. From the age of five, she dreamed of becoming an author. She wrote stories for her Grandfather Carpenter, and each Christmas she gave him one of these stories as a gift. Today, Ms. Warner is best remembered as the author of THE BOXCAR CHILDREN MYSTERIES.

As a child, Gertrude enjoyed many of the things that girls enjoy today. She loved furnishing a dollhouse with handmade furniture and she liked to read. Her favorite book was ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Often on Sundays after church, Gertrude enjoyed trips to visit her grandparents' farm. Along the way, she and Frances would stop to pick the wildflowers they both loved. Gertrude's favorite flower was the violet.

Her family was a very musical one. They were able to have a family orchestra, and Gertrude enjoyed playing the cello. Her father had brought her one from New York ---a cello, a bow, a case and an instruction book. All together, he paid $14. Later, as an adult, she began playing the pipe organ and sometimes substituted for the church organist.

Due to ill health, Ms. Warner never finished high school. She left in the middle of her second year and studied with a tutor. Then, in 1918, when teachers were called to serve in World War I, the school board asked her to teach first grade. She had forty children in the morning and forty more in the afternoon. Ms. Warner wrote, "I was asked or begged to take this job because I taught Sunday School. But believe me, day school is nothing like Sunday School, and I sure learned by doing --- I taught in that same room for 32 years, retiring at 60 to have more time to write." Eventually, Ms. Warner attended Yale, where she took several teacher training courses.

Once when she was sick and had to stay home from teaching, she thought up the story about the Boxcar Children. It was inspired by her childhood dreams. As a child, she had spent hours watching the trains go by near her family's home. Sometimes she could look through the window of a caboose and see a small stove, a little table, cracked cups with no saucers, and a tin coffee pot boiling away on the stove. The sight had fascinated her and made her dream about how much fun it would be to live and keep house in a boxcar or caboose. She read the story to her classes and rewrote it many times so the words were easy to understand. Some of her pupils spoke other languages at home and were just learning English. THE BOXCAR CHILDREN gave them a fun story that was easy to read.

Ms. Warner once wrote for her fans, "Perhaps you know that the original BOXCAR CHILDREN. . . raised a storm of protest from librarians who thought the children were having too good a time without any parental control! That is exactly why children like it! Most of my own childhood exploits, such as living in a freight car, received very little cooperation from my parents."

Though the story of THE BOXCAR CHILDREN went through some changes after it was first written, the version that we are familiar with today was originally published in 1942 by Scott Foresman. Today, Albert Whitman & Company publishes this first classic story as well as the next eighteen Alden children adventures that were written by Ms. Warner.

Gertrude Chandler Warner died in 1979 at the age of 89 after a full life as a teacher, author, and volunteer for the American Red Cross and other charitable organizations. After her death, Albert Whitman & Company continued to receive mail from children across the country asking for more adventures about Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny Alden. In 1991, Albert Whitman added to THE BOXCAR CHILDREN MYSTERIES so that today's children can enjoy many more adventures about this independent and caring group of children.

Books about Gertrude: https://www.goodreads.com/characters/...

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This takes place in the spring/summer. The children help their grandfather's friend with his garden after he breaks his arm. The story involves a community garden, rabbits, vandalism, and an upcoming fair. The rabbits and gardening were interesting, but the mystery was okay. Also, I wanted to have the fair in the story.

[Missy LeBlanc Ivey · Rating 4 out of 5]

AR POINTS: 2.0 READING LEVEL: 4.1
(7-10 years; grades 1-5)
--------------------
This was a cute little story that grew and grew until everyone was so angry at each other because they were working so hard in their community gardens trying to grow blue-ribbon vegetables for competitions, but someone was either picking all their vegetables or ruining their garden with a 3-wheeler.

Four siblings offered to help their grandfather's old friend with his community garden when he broke his arm and were also very interested in helping solve the mystery of the garden thief. They do help solve the mystery, but they also learn a lot of real gardening techniques.

I even stopped reading and texted my daughter who is going to have a fall garden for the first time, to remind her to plant her seeds a liitle at a time, every two weeks, so she doesn't harvest everything all at one time.

Her boys actually helped me rototille my garden and plant the seeds in my garden this year. I only have 2 of my 20x30 beds planted this summer. Unfortunately, we've had SO MUCH rain this spring and summer that everything except the okra has drowned and died. But the boys seemed to really enjoy working with me in the garden, so I think they might really enjoy this story too.

[Eliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grandfather's friend, Mr. Yee, has broken his arm and can't help his vegetables in the community garden for prize-winning veggies. The Boxcar Children offer to help but they soon find something strange is happening in the community garden. Someone with a 3-wheeled ATV is driving over the community garden and vegetables keep getting stolen. Will the Boxcar Children find Mr. Yee's veggies and help him win prize-winning vegetables?

[Joseph D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 130 of the Boxcar Children series. This is a book most people should read. The attitude of the thief that no one else matters just their own interests. I do like these that have split bad guys and split motivations, it adds a lot of depth to the mystery. Overall a great lesson just wish the punishment has been more severe in the end as a teaching moment. ​

Joseph McKnight
http://www.josephmcknight.com

[Charlotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite my own love of gardening, this one is currently my least favorite Boxcar Children book. The mystery is incredibly thin; the culprit(s) are quite obvious from the start, and everyone's motives are just weird. It did get my four year old interested in cooking our vegetable thinnings though, so I guess that's good.

[Cherish Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4☆ Would recommend)
I loved these books as a kid & I'm really enjoying reading through the series again. I liked the mystery & the suspense. I like how there is more than one possible suspect, who each have reasonable motive. Would recommend.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

How many books are in this series?

[Kourtnie Neighbarger]

I thought it was I good book and interesting book.

[Charles Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

81%

Sustainable gardening is the future!

[Beth Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook with Emma and Will. We had a day where we spend a good bit of time in the car and this was on our library's app, which is how I settled on it. We listened to the whole thing in a day, and they enjoyed it. But I wonder sometimes why I keep coming back to these books, they are painful to listen to (but even more so to read). I think I had such fond memories of them growing up that it's hard to reconcile those memories with reading these as an adult. I think we loved the independence and initiative of the children, and of course the mystery aspect. These are all things my kids take away from the books as well. It helped our time in the car pass quietly and without arguing, so I'm calling that a win, even if it wasn't the best book :)

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

We wanted something for our kids to listen to during our vacation in the car as a family. Our oldest (a second grader) loves a good mystery and this seem like a good series to try out.

While the story was simple enough for our kindergarden to follow, the mystery was a little easy to figure out for our oldest.

We enjoyed it, but I'm not sure enough to come back to the series in lieu of other better choices for us.

It was good, clean and wholesome but I would say a bit generic for our tastes. Due to my geeky influence, we tend to like things like sci-fi or fantasy (Dr. Who, Star Wars, The Avengers, Harry Potter, etc.).

[Elizabeth "Eli" Olmedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Garden Thief is a fun mystery filled with lots of wonderful lessons for young readers. They can learn anything from the importance of helping one’s neighbors to some of the things entailed in keeping a garden. Don’t be surprised if, after reading this book, your child asks you if he/she can thin your carrots or build trellises for the peas. This is definitely a book I would strongly recommend to young readers.

Review copy provided by publisher. Thank you!

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not especially like this book or the mystery. The original Boxcar Children were resourceful and inventive, but they did not solve mysteries. If they had, they would have worked out why their grandfather never visited them or why the bakery owner was after them. They didn't, and they just weren't curious enough to care. So the mystery series doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Cori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read May 23, 2019

[Micki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved THE BOX CAR CHILDREN series when I was a kid, and I'm glad Violet and her siblings finally found a permanent home with their grandfather and that he's not the awful man they thought he was.

[Y · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full of charming people, as usual.

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The garden thief is stealing food from the garden, crazy right. The kids are going to hunt them down just like a rabbit *wink wink.

[Gianna Gaspard · Rating 1 out of 5]

it was good, interesting.

[Gail Shipley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute story with a simple mystery. Easy read.

[Mitran Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a good book