History Literature / TheBoxcarChildren

In 2023, Albert, Whitman and Co. sold the rights to the series to Penguin Random House.

* ExtrudedBookProduct: While not originally this, the 1991 revival is one of the most notable examples of this trope within modern literature. Originally published at a rate of eight new books per year (six regular books and two specials), this was reduced in 2004 to just four books per year (all regulars, as specials were discontinued) and as of 2021 the series appears to have been again cut to just two books per year. Then there are two spin off series; ''The Adventures of Benny and Watch'' (1997-2004), and ''The Jessie Files'' (2022-present).

* DoesNotLikeSpam: After a long stretch of living off raw eggs stolen from the chicken coop, Andy swears off eating them.

* {{Pride}}: Tom Cook's main flaw in the book. He's too proud to let his son work to help support the family, insisting on doing everything himself (though it later comes out that he's plenty able to afford what they need all on his own), or to let him go away to college, since he did just fine without it.

* NoAnimalsAllowed: A motel they stay at doesn't allow pets, so they sneak Shadow in. This proves to be a blessing when he alerts them to a fire that was caught before it burned the motel down.

* FantasyForbiddingFather: [[spoiler: Mr. Bellamy, father of Sarah Bellamy, the girl playing Dorothy, strongly disapproves of her desire to be an actress, since her mother was also one, but died during a performance. He changes his mind after being exposed.]]

* StealingFromTheTill: The culprit in this book is revealed to be an employee who's been letting some close friends come in to eat ice cream after hours.

* NotNowKiddo: A short-lived case. Benny's been bored, but his siblings are all busy with their own things. Then he comes into the living room saying something's landing on the lawn. For a moment, they think he's just saying it to get attention, though they don't say so aloud... but then the shadow he saw makes the room get dark, and Watch starts whining, making them realize he's telling the truth and they all get up to see what it is. It turns out to be a hot air balloon that got blown off course and is coming in for a landing in their yard.

* GenderBlenderName: while the Aldens are out delivering papers, Jessie points out a female golden retriever to Soo Lee. The thing is, the dog's name is Cody -- traditionally a ''male'' name.

* OutOfContextEavesdropping: At one point, the Aldens hear architect Rebecca Wright saying something on the phone about making a lot of money. In the final chapter, they mention this, and she explains that she was talking to her husband about her job, designing the firehouse, would be her big break and make them a lot of money to help pay their bills.

* ArkhamsRazor: The real culprit of most of the later installments is invariable whichever suspect is not actually suspected by the title heroes.

* EenieMeenieMinyMoai: While the family is vacationing on an uncharted Pacific island, they discover a fallen statue, which they are told is similar to the ones on Easter Island.

* MeaningfulName: In book #8 (''The Lighthouse Mystery''), the mystery they find involves cooking, and their main suspect's name is Larry Cook.

%%[[folder: #056: ''The Firehouse Mystery'' (1997)]]
%%

%%[[folder: #057: ''The Mystery in San Francisco'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: Special #008: ''The Niagara Falls Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #058: ''The Mystery at the Alamo'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #059: ''The Outer Space Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #060: ''The Soccer Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: Special #009: ''The Mystery in the Old Attic'' (1997)]]
%%
%%[[/folder]]
%%

* MosquitoMiscreants: The wind direction shifts from the sea to the land one night, prompting mosquitoes to fly in through the unscreened windows - and cover Violet's face in bites.

* Schoolmarm: The reclusive Miss Gray takes on this role when it's time for the Aldens to head home when their vacation ends.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Pickett's plan below to buy up land around his opponent's house and block entry would not work; by law, since the only access point would be across Pickett's land, he would be obgliged to grant an easement.

* RejectingTheInheritance: Played with. Jessie does not take her grandmother's neckalce home with her, instead letting it remain in the museum it was donated to - with herself listed as the donor instead of Lorraine, and with the understnading that it will be made available if she ever wishes to borrow it.

* IdiotBall: Someone is sabotaging his zoo - right after he fired a disgruntled employee - but Edward doesn't think to have any locks changed.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: In book #33 (''The Pizza Mystery''), the lady with the red hat [[spoiler: reveals that she's been wanting to learn how to make pizzas and sending the kids on deliveries because her family restaurant is failing, and she is worried about her parents going bankrupt. The Piccolos bluntly ask why she didn't tell them, since they would have been happy to help without the subterfuge. They immediately start her on cooking lessons that she can pass on to her parents, for which she is eternally grateful]].
* EvilIsPetty: In book #33 (''The Pizza Mystery''), it's revealed that the perpetrator behind the sabotage at the pizza place is [[spoiler: a middle-management business executive at the company next door. When the kids bring him a free pizza as a peace offering, he eats it while gloating he thinks the Piccolos are old enough to be retired and the restaurant would serve better as a work cafeteria. Fortunately, he left the intercom on long enough for his boss to overhear, and she fires him on the spot while apologizing to the kids]].

* TreacheryCoverUp: Inverted. After one character has spent so long trying to paint one long-deceased man as a villain, then discovers evidence that he ''wasn't'', they try to hide the truth. [[spoiler: Specifically, Prudence Coffin has long been claiming, based on what evidence they had at the time, that Eli Hull, first mate of the ''Flying Cloud'', had led the crew in a mutiny against her great-grandfather, Captain Jeremiah Coffin, before the ship sank. She even wrote a book about it. During the events of the story, a logbook from the ship turns up that reveals Eli ''had'' taken charge of the ship... because Captain Coffin was feverish with malaria, and had to be confined to his cabin because he kept ignoring his illness and trying to order his crew to go back to sea when all they wanted was to get him help.]] Eventually, they decide to admit they were wrong and publish the truth.

* GenderEqualEnsemble: The siblings, with Henry and Benny (the oldest and youngest) as the two boys and Jessie and Violet as the two girls.

* PoorCommunicationKills: Benny does not go to the glass factory with the rest of the family, instead going to see the local talking horse and saying he'll have a nap afterwards. It takes rather a bit of travel before they realize he didn't make it on board.

* ComicBookTime: Initially set in the depression era, more recent books have included passenger jets, tropical cruises, and the internet (yet the boxcar remains a wood-sided boxcar that would have been retired by the 1950s). They have a different summer adventure in every book, and they're all still young somehow...

* ILoveNuclearPower: In book #4 (''Mystery Ranch''), it's discovered that the black and yellow rocks in the fireplace at Aunt Jane's ranch are uranium. By the next visit to Aunt Jane, the sleepy ranch town is now home to a massive uranium mine.

* FreeRangeChildren: In the first book they live quite alone in the woods. Though they go to live with their grandfather in later books, they continue to move around extremely independently, if to a slightly lesser extent. The children's independence is not only allowed, but encouraged, by their grandfather -- Henry and Jessie, the two oldest, are only 14 and 12, but they usually seem more like high schoolers and act basically as parent figures to Violet and Benny, the two youngest—who are 10 and 6, but also act older. Throughout the series, they've done such varied things as camping out, exploring the Arizona desert, and even caving, all without a lick of supervision. This makes sense, since the premise of the series is that they lived just fine in an abandoned boxcar for several months before learning their grandpa wasn't a jerk.

* NoAntagonist: More than half of the Warner-era books have the characters simply solving a mystery about something they found, with no real villain involved; book 1 has a pair of adults who want to send the kids to their grandfather whether they want to go or not, but are completely absent from the story after the Aldens find the boxcar, and book 3 has some crooks in the backstory who aren't around to impede the Aldens during the actual events of the book, but beyond that, books 4, 5, 10, 12, 15 and 19 are the only ones from this time period with any human antagonists present and out to cause trouble.

* FamilyOfChoice: Over the course of the book, the Alden and Clark (parents Jake and Sarah children Meg and William, and dog Joe) families become close, and when the Clarks finally have to leave, they promise that no matter how far apart they are, they'll always be family.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: In the matter of Pickett's Perfect Paints versus the environmentalists. Pickett is right in that his factory brings work to the area, which is a benefit, but his sons and Frank Timmons are also right in that it's ruining the land by dumping dirty water and releasing chemicals into the air. Fortunately, the disagreement is resolved when Grandfather Alden explains how his own factories used to have the same problems and found solutions to fix them up without closing down entirely, which can be implemented in Pickett's factory too.

* AdaptedOut: Many characters from the original books, including Mrs. [=McGregor=]'s husband, Aunt Jane's farmhands, Benny's friend Mike Wood, Grandfather's pilot/former spy friend John Carter and the Beach family next door nearly or completely disappear in the post-Warner books. (Then again, except for the Beaches, they'd pretty much all disappeared during the original series too -- Mike, who lives elsewhere, was last seen in book 6 when he joined them for one vacation, the ranchhands/farmhands in book 7 with it being said that they were going back west, John Carter was last seen in book 10, and Mr. [=McGregor=]'s only real appearance after his debut was in book 14.)

* ColorCodedCharacters: Throughout the series, the four children are almost always associated with green, blue, violet and red (for Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny), which are said to be their favorite colors, when they're each receiving one of the same type.

* NoAntagonist: More than half of the Warner-era books have the characters simply solving a mystery about something they found, with no real villain involved; book 1 has a pair of adults who want to send the kids to their grandfather but are completely absent from the story after they find the boxcar, and book 3 has some crooks in the backstory who aren't around to impede the Aldens during the actual events of the book, but beyond that, books 4, 5, 10, 12, 15 and 19 are the only ones from this time period with any human antagonists present and out to cause trouble.

* SixthRanger: Or fifth, in this case. Soo Lee, the Alden's seven-year-old adopted cousin, becomes the fifth member of the group on many of their adventures, starting in book #41 (''The Mystery of the Hidden Beach").

* ParentalSubstitute: Attempted but averted at the end of the book. After Ben and Kate Alden are killed in a car crash, their elderly neighbors Rubin and Belle offer to take them in. Unfortunately, Sheriff Bowen nixes this, saying they're required to go to a family member, and the only one they know is their estranged grandfather.

* NoAnimalsAllowed: A motel they stay at doesn't allow pets, so they sneak Shadow in. This proves to be a blessing, when he alerts them to a fire that was caught before it burned the motel down.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Mr. Fogg, the first floor manager, is generally cranky, and doesn't hold back when dealing with customers. But he's also a hard and dedicated worker.

* TropeyComeHome: the plot gets kicked off when the Aldens discover a parrot, Grayfallow, who's escaped from the pet store where he lives (as a display only, not for sale). During this same time, they find a local boy, Arthur Byrd, who claims to be out looking for his missing cat (though it eventually comes out he was lying).

%%[[folder: Special #007: ''The Pet Shop Mystery'' (1996)]]

%%[[folder: #055: ''The Mystery of the Secret Message'' (1996)]]

%%[[folder: #056: ''The Firehouse Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #057: ''The Mystery in San Francisco'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: Special #008: ''The Niagara Falls Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #058: ''The Mystery at the Alamo'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #059: ''The Outer Space Mystery'' (1997)]]

%%[[folder: #060: ''The Soccer Mystery'' (1997)]]
%%
%%[[/folder]]
%%
%%[[folder: Special #009: ''The Mystery in the Old Attic'' (1997)]]
%%
%%[[/folder]]
%%

* DeathByOriginStory: The Aldens' parents, who die offscreen in a car crash near the end of the book, causing the siblings to run away so they won't be sent to live with their only known relative (whom they believe to be mean).

* DontSplitUsUp: This is a concern for the title characters, who assume when their parents die that they'll either be adopted by the grandfather their parents hate and they believe is abusive (which proves not to be the case) or be taken into foster care and split up. The latter proves to be a reasonable concern, as when they stay at a bakery overnight, they hear the owner and his wife (who'd previously agreed to let them stay) talking about how they're going to send Benny to the Children's Home since the baker's wife can't take care of a child who's that young. This prompts the four to run away into the woods, where they find the boxcar that becomes their home.