Kids Books: Boxcar Kids

An Homage to Gertrude Chandler Warner’s and Her Wonderful Boxcar Kids Books

I love to write. I am passionate about good writing. Writing well for kids who are learning to read is actually more like poetry than you would think. You must carefully judge each word for readability. You must emphasize clarity. You must be spare while trying to excite and communicate richness to these young minds that are so sponge-like that they can absorb way beyond that which they can read.

One of the greatest joys I ever experienced with a book was reading Gertrude Chandler Warner’s Boxcar Kids books aloud to my kids when they were young. (I mean the original 8 to 10 books in the series, not the books that came later ghost written.)

Gertrude Chandler Warner crafted simple but simply beautiful sentences that brought the Boxcar Kid’s world to shimmering, almost-real life. Within this spare but evocative prose there was pace and rhythm and character details. The cadence of the prose was so perfect, the pacing of the stories so well done, the moral heart of the stories so good. I admit, sometimes I would tear up in the oddest places in the story just from the experience reading them. They certainly now seem like treasured friends to me.

So good.

I tell you there were times when I would just be full of the pure joy of reading when I read these to my children. They would be laughing and commenting on the story, while I was mesmerized by how expertly this sparse prose constructed a vividly imagined world.

I think about those books often as I write the DaVinchy Chapter Series Books. For me, each book begins with a rough outline of events.  Then I fill in the prose and details of the story, not editing myself. I just provide a richness of detail so that when I begin to pare back, I reveal a vividly imagined world. I hold the feel of Gertrude Chandler Warner’s prose in my mind as I write.

Sometimes I pare back beyond that and allow the pictures to carry the weight of the story. I do this mindful of the fact that I want reading to be fun – and sometimes when you are learning to read and have just struggled with reading a really long page, it is such a relief to come upon a page that has few words. It’s like giving a competitive athelete a towel and a water bottle in the midst of a game break.

I know that I am writing a more action-oriented world than Gertrude wrote. So you can forgive my comparisons of our little series to hers.  But Gertrude, wherever you are. You inspired me and I thank you deeply. And if you love great fiction writing for children and want to expose your child to the sound of it, I highly recommend reading the Boxcar Kids aloud. If your child is learning to write this is a wonderful thing to expose them to as well.

Enjoy.