The Mystery of the Hidden Painting: The Boxcar Children #24 (Gertrude Chandler Warner) - Paperback

The Boxcar Children #24

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

One warm night four children stood in front of a bakery. No one knew them. No one knew where they had come from.Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny used to live alone in a boxcar. Now they have a home with their grandfather, and they find a mysterious painting hidden in the attic.The children learn that it is a portrait of their grandmother, whom they never knew, wearing the necklace Grandfather gave her when they were married. The necklace disappeared on their first anniversary--and was never found. Can the Boxcar Children track down a necklace missing for so many years?

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Fiction, Middle Grade, Audiobook, Juvenile, Chapter Books

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1992

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

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute mystery story for children but interesting enough that I enjoyed it.

[Mikayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read cause you can never go wrong with the Boxcar Children. <3

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick read, but I do feel like it was missing some of the action other boxcar books have. It was really just a bunch of beating around the bush until the guilty party felt bad enough to give the necklace back. I'm glad they got it back, though. Jessie was also really sweet to donate it back to the museum.

[Isla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love to read! i have read more then 15 books.

[Rose Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

wowy!what a adventur!

[Diana Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always got to read at least one Boxcar Children book every year out loud to my class. This was a good one and kept their attention throughout!

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

So even though they interviewed all of the caterers, they missed interviewing one of the caterers?

[Angelo Kuntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mystery of the Missing Painting (I found a typo in this book)

The Boxcar Children Henry, Jessie, Violet, Benny and their grandfather James are at home thinking of what to do. Jessie said they should clean the boxcar because they hadn’t cleaned it in a while James stayed inside while the kids cleaned their boxcar.

As they cleaned they were talking about their grandfather’s birthday. Violet said they should dress up we have some costumes in the attic. After they cleaned up they went up into the attic to see what was up there.

Jessie found a painting sitting on a chair and she suspected it was their grandmother wearing a necklace.

They went downstairs to talk to their grandfather and he told them a story about him giving their grandmother the necklace for a marriage present. He had a professional designer make it. One day it was lost and never found.

The next morning they decided to go to Aunt Jane’s house and talk to her about the necklace. Violet drew an exact picture of it in her sketch book. They took the bus to her house which was three hours away.

After they talked with Aunt Jane, they went to the museum. When they got there, a man greeted them and said his name was Mr. Mason. They asked him if he had a necklace just like Violet’s drawing.

He brought them into a room. In the room there was a case with a beautiful necklace in it. There was a tag on it that said “Donated by Ms. Loraine Newton.”

They compared it to Violet’s drawing. It looked exactly the same. They went to Ms. Newton’s house and knocked. A woman opened it and they asked her where they could find Lorraine Newton. “She’s on the back porch,” the woman replied.

They went to the back porch and found an old woman.

They asked her if she had donated a necklace to the museum. She said “Yes, my son stole it and I gave it to the museum because I didn’t want him to go to jail.”

They went back to Aunt Jane’s house and called their grandfather. They said he should come over and a few hours later he was there. The children told him their story and said they should go to the museum. They did. They got their grandmother’s necklace back and went home. When they got there, they celebrated James’ Birthday.

[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 suspects. If it weren't for some major flaws with it not lining up with the series, I would have given it a 5-star rating.

I understand that the original author only wrote the first 19 books & years later other authors picked up the series & wrote under the original author’s name, but there are so many major flaws. First, the original author wrote all the books in chronological order; from Henry being a 14-year-old to a grad student. In this book Henry is a 14-year-old boy. However, this book has Aunt Jane in it, but in book 3, which is before Aunt Jane was introduced, Henry is 16. It’s fine to do stories back in time, but they don't line up with the storyline of the original 19 books. If they are going to write stories when the kids are younger that has Aunt Jane, Henry should at least be 16, since he was at least that old when the kids met her for the first time. And I don't like how every book so far after the original 19 put the synopsis of the first book (their origin story) into a conversation between the kids in a very unnatural way. It feels forced & doesn't naturally flow. It would have been better if it was from a narrator's perspective instead of a conversation from the kids that they would most likely never have. I also didn't like how the "bad guy" did things that were wrong, but weren't punished in anyway. I feel like it has a completely different message than the original books had about justice. I also didn't like how adults didn't take the kids seriously in this book. That's one thing that made the original 19 books so great; that they were kids but they were respected by adults & that adults listened to them & took them seriously.

[Allison]

I love the box car children series,and have always have been a big fan.One thing I absolutely love about these books is how captivating it is,it's hard not to go to bed one reading one of these books.Something I have never like in a books is cliff hangers and this one has a few.I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a short but good action book where's alot going on.I would not recommend this if you want a longer book or if you despise cliff hanger.

SPOILERS

In the beginning of the book the children want to throw Grandfather a party for his birthday,and they want to throw him a party.They go to the attic to find decorations and some costumes to be fancy while their up there they find a picture of a young woman in a purple gown with a beautiful sapphire necklace.They obviously wanted to find out where the necklaces is,so they call their aunt if they can come to her house.When they go their they get in trouble with the museum,and one of the rich neighbors.After they leave their disappointed because they didn't find the necklaces.Later the museum guy and the lady that got mad at them came and told them that they did have the necklaces and were really sorry for lying.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honesty compels me to say that I thought the kids were actually kind of rude in this... but rudeness pays, apparently! Or at least it does here, where their dogged determination to get straight answers out of adults leads to the return of a long-lost necklace. I did smile to myself at their innocent wondering as to why the adults were so short with them, though, considering the kids basically invited themselves to their houses and implicitly accused them of stealing. ("Our grandmother's necklace was stolen and we think you have it!" Not in so many words, of course, but how did they think that would be taken? I'd say they're so used to being nosy that it doesn't register anymore, but the past few books they've gone back to being normal friendly kids, instead of nosy brats, so that's not a fair assessment.)

Still. Rightness covers a multitude of sins, and they (or more particularly Jessie, who spearheaded the interrogations) were right. The final donation of the necklace was generous as well, so Jessie gets extra points for that.

[Kathryn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Alden kids take nosiness to a new level here and are actually really rather rude knocking on people's doors and more or less saying, "Hey, mind if we come in -- we think you stole our grandmother's necklace!" Of course, their detective instincts are nothing but spot-on, despite some extremely weak evidence (for example, a lady in one town receives a letter from a lady in a neighboring town -- gasp! how shocking! surely they must be in cahoots because why else would you write a letter to someone in the next town over!) and it's hard to play along as the reader because the plot is so thin -- not to mention slow (we have one chapter devoted to calling all the people in surrounding towns with the last name of one of the suspects, hoping the lady in question will actually answer one of them!) Lacks any exciting travel-type atmosphere since they're just in and around Greenfield. Not one of the better installments, IMO.

[Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book! It is engaging and hold your breath the entire time. I like how the story isOne ministry after another mystery. The only thing it’s hard for me to believe is The bad guys just turn over easily at the very end, yet they demonstrated such cold Ness towards the boxer children and the beginning. I think there is always a fine line between trying to probe into somebody’s life and just let it be and do nothing. That just means the Boxer children really want to know the truth but a lot of times they struggle whether they can just talk to the person that they suspect directly or show up in front of their house directly or not. It’s very adventurous, And I like how boxer children support and encourage each other and work together as a team. I love to see more books from boxer children.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another interesting one, although this one was not actually written by Warner - she only wrote the first 19 books. While poking around in the attic for old-fashioned clothes to wear for Grandfather's birthday party, they find a painting of a young woman wearing a beautiful necklace. When they ask Grandfather about it, it turns out to be his late wife and the painting was put in the attic because she couldn't bear to look at it after the necklace was stolen at a party and never seen again. But the children see a photo in a newspaper of someone wearing the very same necklace, which eventually leads them to a museum where the necklace is displayed. Their efforts to prove that it is their grandmother's necklace doesn't go over too well with the people they question. But of course it is solved in the end.

[Juliet Palomarez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book because it was a simple read and user friendly. It would be a good option for younger elementary aged students who are getting into reading, especially since it is a series that has a lot of options. Throughout the book Throughout the book, I was able to incorporate imagination when thinking about how I would act if I was in the same situation as the main characters. I think showing the characters perseverance and true interest in getting to the bottom of the mystery makes the reader think how they would act in the same scenario or even would it might feel like to be treated the way they were in the story. Along the way at every event I began to imagine if I would have done the same thing or what I might have done differently than the characters when searching for the necklace.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic and well acclaimed series, recommended as a great series for young readers. The Boxcar Children invoke the enjoyment for mystery-solving and having a close relationship with family.

The mysteries are certainly twinged with a bit more danger now, and you can tell that other authors are penning the stories. They still make for excellent adventures and problem solving. These books keep to the classic focus of the original 19 stories and have heart and family values and helping others as a forefront in every story.

The children are all oh-so-friendly to each other and those they meet. They seem to agree about mostly everything; their world seems to be made of butterflies and rainbows. The times of this book being written to present day are vastly different.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always enjoy hearing more about the Alden family's extended relations - in this case, their grandmother, Celia - so this was a good read. However, I should have liked to have seen some measure of consequences for the conspirators who worked to keep the necklace away from the Aldens. I mean, one of them broke into the Aldens home, for goodness' sake! The kids actually heard them moving about the house, and were genuinely frightened. Breaking and entering is a crime, and yet everything is A-okay after a couple of meek apologies.

[Mari]

not really a mystery...

they never figure anything out.

their dad gifted his late wife a wedding gift. she lost it on the day.
there was an issue at the printing press, so no news article came out.

everyone for some reason denies knowing anything about the necklace including three ladies and a museum curator. but they confess at the end after seeing portrait of grandmother in the kids house.

one of the ladies' son who was lazy stole the necklace, and the mom donated it to the museum.

[Kim Hampton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this book as much as I've liked the rest of the series. For one thing, what kind of museum owner takes a stolen item, knowing it's stolen? Also, I understand the lady didn't want her son to get in trouble with the police, but she could have always taken it to the police station and just told them she found it on the side of the road, and they could have found the owner. I realize that would have meant the book couldn't have been written, but maybe it shouldn't have been written.

[Aydon Severson]

In their grandfather's attic, the Aldens discover a painting of their grandmother wearing a necklace that disappeared long ago. Although the Boxcar Children are determined to track down the missing necklace, they only find dead ends. I thought this was a very good read as they were trying to find their grandmas necklace and painting, battling through the ups and downs and dead ends.

[Joseph D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 24 of the Boxcar Children. I am liking the new plot structure. This was a good one full of deceit and mystery. This was a good read and kept me turning the pages. The ending was a little telegraphed, but for an age specific reader I think it would be perfect. ​

Joseph McKnight
http://www.josephmcknight.com

[Jason Ve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was nice but it was not that good at the beginning so I rated it 4 stars. Then when it gets to the the middle the mystery already starts I was so interested then they find out what happens. Then at the end they rest and act like that was the end of the mystery.

[Shae Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a cute mystery on the hunt for the missing necklace from the painting. I felt like they were so close to cracking the clues a few times. So glad in the end they got the necklace back and she donated it so more people could enjoy its history.

[Jishnu Thakkar · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite character was Benny cause he loves to eat like me

nothing surprised me

i would not change the ending

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

😎

[Kenneth Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read to Lydia (6) and she loved it.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

These written after Ms. Warner's death, are not nearly as good. This mystery was downright irritating.

[Effie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting mystery, important to address stereotypes, not great for discussion, could talk about characters relationships/ motivation, themes: determination, forgiveness

[Charles Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

76%

WHERE IS THE VENGEANCE? THESE SHADY PEOPLE NEED JUSTICE.

[Katherine Horrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun childhood read; great companion to The Four Story Mistake, which I also just read.