The Box-Car Children (Annotated)

Gertrude Chandler Warner (1890-1979) was born in Putnam, CT. Best known as the author of The Boxcar Children and 18 more books in the same series, she dreamed of being an author from the age of five. Her first effort was an imitation of Florence Kate Upton's Golliwog stories, which she called Golliwog at the Zoo. Warner loved to read while she was growing up; her favorite book was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Because she was sickly, Warner never finished high school; she received tutoring to finish her secondary education. During World War I, while she was teaching Sunday School and there was a shortage of teachers because so many men had gone to war, Warner was asked to teach first grade. She continued as a teacher in her home town of Putnam from 1918 to 1950. Warner loved nature and made use of her interest in flora and fauna in the classroom. Similarly, she infused her books with nature themes. For example, in Surprise Island, the second book of The Boxcar Children series, the Alden children make a nature museum from the objects they have collected and the bird shapes they have seen. Warner wrote other children's books in addition to the Boxcar Children series, including The World in a Barn (1927), Windows into Alaska (1928), The World on a Farm (1931), and Peter Piper, Missionary Parakeet (1967). Warner never married and lived in her parents' house for almost forty years. She later moved to her grandmother's house and in 1962, she started living in a different house with a companion, a retired nurse. Before she died at the age of 89, she did volunteer work for the American Red Cross, the Connecticut Cancer Society, and other charitable organizations. She is buried in Grove Street Cemetery in Putnam.