The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner, the first book in the series, has come to life in the animated film, “The Boxcar Children,” with voice actors Joey King, Mackenzie Foy, Zachary Gordon, and Jaden Sand. Directors include Daniel Chuba and Mark A. Z. Dippé. It’s now on sale wherever DVDs are sold!
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, a New York Times Bestselling author of over twenty novels, writes about how reading The Boxcar Children as a young girl helped shape her love of reading for pleasure:
The Boxcar Children is the book that changed my life. An exaggeration? Nope. Cross my heart. I was seven years old and in second grade. Learning to read had been a terrible struggle for me, and my seven-year-old brain could not comprehend reading for pleasure. And then Mrs. Martin began reading The Boxcar Children to the class at the end of each school day.
I was enraptured with the story from the first page, and to this day, I remember the sick feeling in my stomach when the school bell rang, and Mrs. Martin closed the book—the story UNFINISHED. Then, the agonizing wait through the next day for the magical moment—would it ever arrive?—when she would open the book again.
After that introduction, how could I not beg my mother—not that it took much begging—to take me to the library to get Surprise Island. And then The Yellow House Mystery. My lifelong love of reading had begun.
Phillips’ newest book Heroes Are My Weakness is on sale everywhere that books are sold beginning on August 26th. You can visit her website; follow her on Twitter, and like her Facebook page.
