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The Boxcar Children #19
Benny Uncovers a Mystery
Four brave siblings were searching for a home – and found a life of adventure! Join the Boxcar Children as they investigate a department store mystery in this illustrated chapter book series beloved by generations of readers.
When Benny and Henry get summer jobs at a department store in town, they don't expect to be solving mysteries at work. But when an expensive vase disappears, the salespeople receive strange notes, and the jewelry display is tampered with, it's up to Benny to uncover the truth!
What started as a single story about the Alden Children has delighted readers for generations and sold more than 80 million books worldwide. Featuring timeless adventures, mystery, and suspense, The Boxcar Children® series continues to inspire children to learn, question, imagine, and grow.
When Benny and Henry get summer jobs at a department store in town, they don't expect to be solving mysteries at work. But when an expensive vase disappears, the salespeople receive strange notes, and the jewelry display is tampered with, it's up to Benny to uncover the truth!
What started as a single story about the Alden Children has delighted readers for generations and sold more than 80 million books worldwide. Featuring timeless adventures, mystery, and suspense, The Boxcar Children® series continues to inspire children to learn, question, imagine, and grow.
128 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1976
55 people are currently reading
976 people want to read
About the author
Gertrude Chandler Warner
536 books767 followersGertrude 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/...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
June 15, 2013
Even though I still have more Boxcar Children books to read (I plan to read all 19 of the original series), I actually feel a bit sad knowing that this is the last book of the series written by Gertrude Chandler Warner.
I haven't read all the books in the series yet, but this book differs from many of the others in that not all of the children are present for the mystery. Some of the earlier books do focus more on Benny, but Henry and the girls were at least always around. In this book, Benny is almost as big as Henry (as depicted in the illustrations), and he and Henry are the main characters. Though it was nice to see Henry in a front-and-center role again, Violet and Jessie basically only showed up in the beginning and end of the book.
The mystery itself was a good one, I thought. Maybe even one of my favorites, though that might be because of the nostalgia I felt for the old-fashioned department store that delivered small items to its customers. Basically, some strange things happen at the store, and everyone wonders who is behind it all.
I also liked that this book included a wider range of emotions than most others in this series. Usually, the family is happy and friendly and everyone likes them. But in this book, Henry and Benny find that other people actually resent them for the advantages they enjoy by being the grandchildren of the wealthy and powerful James Alden. Henry and Benny even find themselves feeling angry and indignant!
Anyway, I do wonder if the author knew this would be her last book of the series... I was hoping to find some kind of closure to wrap up the series - What does Henry do when he graduates from college? Does Jessie marry Mr. Carter? - but was disappointed in that regard.
I haven't read all the books in the series yet, but this book differs from many of the others in that not all of the children are present for the mystery. Some of the earlier books do focus more on Benny, but Henry and the girls were at least always around. In this book, Benny is almost as big as Henry (as depicted in the illustrations), and he and Henry are the main characters. Though it was nice to see Henry in a front-and-center role again, Violet and Jessie basically only showed up in the beginning and end of the book.
The mystery itself was a good one, I thought. Maybe even one of my favorites, though that might be because of the nostalgia I felt for the old-fashioned department store that delivered small items to its customers. Basically, some strange things happen at the store, and everyone wonders who is behind it all.
I also liked that this book included a wider range of emotions than most others in this series. Usually, the family is happy and friendly and everyone likes them. But in this book, Henry and Benny find that other people actually resent them for the advantages they enjoy by being the grandchildren of the wealthy and powerful James Alden. Henry and Benny even find themselves feeling angry and indignant!
Anyway, I do wonder if the author knew this would be her last book of the series... I was hoping to find some kind of closure to wrap up the series - What does Henry do when he graduates from college? Does Jessie marry Mr. Carter? - but was disappointed in that regard.
March 23, 2025
This might have been my favorite one in the series! I loved the store setting and the mystery was really fun.
December 20, 2018
I like the boxcar children because benny is always the one to uncover the mystery:):(:-)
:-(.....
:-(.....
October 20, 2021
I've been slowly making my way through The Boxcar Children series for at least 11 years now. This book feels like the end of an era in many ways, as it was the last book in the series written by Gertrude Chandler Warner before she passed away. I really love Gertrude's writing and how simple and heart-warming the stories always were. The Alden children always made do with whatever they had and found happiness in the simplest things. You couldn't help but finish the books feeling more lighthearted than when you started them. As far as Benny Uncovers a Mystery goes, I thought the story was nice but I missed a lot of the things that made previous Boxcar Children books feel special. The book primarily focused on Benny, which they usually did, but in this instance Violet and Jessie were barely in the story at all. We also barely saw Grandfather Alden and didn't even see Watch once, and I loved any book that included Watch in the stories but it seemed like he always got left out of later books. This book is set in a department store after Benny is determined to get a summer job and decides that Henry should get a summer job too. After they both start working at the department store, a mysterious box of lockets appears and no one is sure where they came from and who is breaking into the store at night. Ultimately, I didn't love the mystery of this book and thought the ending felt rushed -- however, it was probably due to whatever was going on in the author's life at the time so I can't really blame her. Despite not loving this one and finding it just okay, I still absolutely love the series and love the impact it had on my childhood and growth into adulthood.
April 27, 2021
This is a decent little story, and if a little bit bland is at least not as off-putting as some of the other books in this series. It helps immensely that the solution to the mystery, obvious as it is, does not involve Grandfather Alden hoovering up more resources in his attempts to control every business in the land. Instead, the four grandkids are using the summer to get jobs of their own, and I much prefer stories like this, where they're doing for themselves, rather than being given fancy vacations every other week - the very first Boxcar story was all about self-reliance and making do and I miss that. That being said, it's becoming clearer and clearer that the only Boxcar child Warner has any real interest is Benny, which is a bit of a shame as he's the one I like least. The girls - including my favourite, Violet - barely get a look-in, despite the fact that they were the most proactive, both getting more interesting jobs and getting them first, before the boys even thought of job-hunting.
As I (very vaguely) understand it, very soon the Warner books stop and the rest of the series is written by other authors? I'd be interested to see if that leads to a more equitable division of protagonists...
As I (very vaguely) understand it, very soon the Warner books stop and the rest of the series is written by other authors? I'd be interested to see if that leads to a more equitable division of protagonists...
October 10, 2020
And so it ends--at least the original 19 books written by Gertrude Chandler Warner, which is where I'll be stopping for the time being.
And it's a rather strange story. Benny gets it in his head that he absolutely needs a summer job--so he ropes Henry into going with him... and the both of them end up working at the same place? With a mystery in the works to boot? Sure. It works.
The mystery this time around was a reverse shoplifter and mysterious woman hanging around--who was much less mysterious if you're expecting it, but my children at least were surprised. And it was worth reading at least to see the idea that sometimes people don't like them because of their family name. When it's not entirely uncommon to have Grandfather buy their way into or out of a mystery, it was something worth seeing.
It was kind of a bummer to barely get any of Violet and Jessie, but so it goes. I do wonder if Warner knew this would be her last one. So it goes.
Onwards to a new series for the children! Perhaps one day we'll return and try some of the later Boxcar Children mysteries.
And it's a rather strange story. Benny gets it in his head that he absolutely needs a summer job--so he ropes Henry into going with him... and the both of them end up working at the same place? With a mystery in the works to boot? Sure. It works.
The mystery this time around was a reverse shoplifter and mysterious woman hanging around--who was much less mysterious if you're expecting it, but my children at least were surprised. And it was worth reading at least to see the idea that sometimes people don't like them because of their family name. When it's not entirely uncommon to have Grandfather buy their way into or out of a mystery, it was something worth seeing.
It was kind of a bummer to barely get any of Violet and Jessie, but so it goes. I do wonder if Warner knew this would be her last one. So it goes.
Onwards to a new series for the children! Perhaps one day we'll return and try some of the later Boxcar Children mysteries.
August 21, 2017
By the time I got to this book, I was wondering whether Henry ever graduated from Adams College, whether Jessie was old enough to either attend college, become a secretary, or get married, (in recognition of the times the book was written), if Benny was ever going to stop being such a little scamp... but it doesn't matter, because it's the Boxcar Children, and I loved this series so much as a kid.
August 20, 2012
The Boxcar Children = most read series between the ages of 6 and 9 for me. I think of these fondly. Every child should read this series.
January 8, 2022
This ends my re-read of the original 19 books. This one was good. It was nice to see the Alden's working, and the mystery was nice.
February 12, 2018
Benny and Henry get summer jobs at a local department store. At the store they meet the other people that work there, who all seemed to me annoyed by a particular custody, a little old lady. Benny and everyone else receive anonymous letters about their work ethic at the store. During a night shift at the store, Henry hears someone trying to get in after everything was closed up. In the end theyre all invited to the little old ladys house where it's revealed that she isn't an old lady at all. Shes the new owner of the store and she'd dressed up in a disguise so she could see for herself how the store was run. So that was the reason for all the mysterious stuff happening.
I think this chick was a little over the top. I mean couldn't she get a friend to check in on the store. Why the disguise and the sneaking around?
I think this chick was a little over the top. I mean couldn't she get a friend to check in on the store. Why the disguise and the sneaking around?
March 26, 2018
This was a pleasurable read, completed primarily to wrap-up the series. This is the last book that Warner actually wrote-and therefore the last that I will read. There are several more published in the series, but not written by the original author.
I was disappointed that this book featured Benny and Henry-Violet and Jessie barely even spoke. For the last book that Warner wrote, this wasn't much of a send-off on the series, and I found that a bit disappointing.
I would recommend this book to anybody who is a fan of the series, but this isn't a good first read for the series.
I was disappointed that this book featured Benny and Henry-Violet and Jessie barely even spoke. For the last book that Warner wrote, this wasn't much of a send-off on the series, and I found that a bit disappointing.
I would recommend this book to anybody who is a fan of the series, but this isn't a good first read for the series.
February 2, 2018
I've been reading a variety of books out loud to my 6-year-old son. He enjoys the Box Car Children series so we've read a number of them. So far, this is the worst one we read. The mystery (there's always a mystery) is not intriguing. There's not much character development with the Alden family. I found it to be pretty blah.
Matthew's review: It's weird. I don't like it as much as the rest of them (Box Car Children books).
Matthew's review: It's weird. I don't like it as much as the rest of them (Box Car Children books).
November 28, 2018
Benny uncovers a mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Two brothers take jobs at the local department store. Lots of things go missing and some new things just appear out of nowhere.
Benny goes out of his way with deliveries to please the customers. Boys implemnt ideas on how to catch whoever is doing things at the store.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
Two brothers take jobs at the local department store. Lots of things go missing and some new things just appear out of nowhere.
Benny goes out of his way with deliveries to please the customers. Boys implemnt ideas on how to catch whoever is doing things at the store.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
March 2, 2020
Benny is at it again
Benny Alden is bored and wants to get a job for the last couple weeks of summer break. He takes a job as a delivery boy for the local department store. This was a quick and fairly uneventful story. My 8 year old had it pretty much figured out early on. But we still enjoy reading the Boxcar Children stories.
Benny Alden is bored and wants to get a job for the last couple weeks of summer break. He takes a job as a delivery boy for the local department store. This was a quick and fairly uneventful story. My 8 year old had it pretty much figured out early on. But we still enjoy reading the Boxcar Children stories.
April 6, 2022
Book 19 of the Boxcar Children. This is a fun working adventure in a department store. It was pretty straightforward but I doubt the clues would have been as obvious to younger kids. This was a fun read and definitely a recommended read in the series.
Joseph McKnight
http://www.josephmcknight.com
Joseph McKnight
http://www.josephmcknight.com
July 5, 2024
This was a cute story! I really liked that it took place in their own town. All their traveling is fun, but it was nice to have a hometown mystery.
Things to be aware of in “Benny Uncovers a Mystery”
Language:
- 1 “stupid”
Additional Notes:
- The boys (Henry and Benny) apply for jobs without asking permission.
Things to be aware of in “Benny Uncovers a Mystery”
Language:
- 1 “stupid”
Additional Notes:
- The boys (Henry and Benny) apply for jobs without asking permission.
July 31, 2020
Finally reached my favorite of the bunch in the original series. Benny has grown tremendously since the beginning, and I enjoyed seeing how mature the character has become. With that, my son and I are now finished with the original run.
January 6, 2019
Eh it's ok it's not that exciting
April 15, 2020
Not the best
May 9, 2021
I like how they have a really big store in it.
July 13, 2021
Turtle: Great! Wants to read again before returning to the library.
September 23, 2021
favorite part was when they go to the shop where they work
August 1, 2022
I always felt personally betrayed that the title of this one did not follow the established Boxcar Children formula.
September 9, 2022
The last of the Boxcar books written by Warner herself. The boys go to work at a department store where they meet lots of new people and learn to cope with a mean co-worker and strange customers.
May 9, 2023
3 3/4 stars
May 26, 2023
78%
I solved it in advance, so I'm pleased,
The ending was too abrupt however.
I solved it in advance, so I'm pleased,
The ending was too abrupt however.
November 20, 2023
This is the last book in the series that Gertrude Chandler Warner wrote herself before she passed away. I enjoyed it, but I felt like it didn't have the excitement of the earlier books.
November 25, 2023
Easy read for kids 8 to 10
June 22, 2024
Benny and Henry get jobs at a store, they were not expecting to find mysteries at work. When a vase disappears it's up to Benny to uncover the truth!
September 12, 2024
(4☆ Would recommend)
I loved these books as a kid & I'm really enjoying reading through the series again. Good mystery with good suspects. I enjoy how the kids are trusted & how justice is served.
I loved these books as a kid & I'm really enjoying reading through the series again. Good mystery with good suspects. I enjoy how the kids are trusted & how justice is served.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews