The Garden Thief

The Boxcar Children #130

by Oasis Audio (Contributor)

Something strange is happening in the community garden! Who's stealing all the veggies?

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

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

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