One day while unpacking into our new house I came across the The Boxcar Children books. The set of 1-12 in the boxcar holder was going to look amazing in the playroom. I realized as my kids looked at my quizzingly that they had never been read these stories. It would be an injustice to my childhood for my own children not to be exposed to these stories.
Many a nights I would spend in the living room of my childhood home while my dad read me these stories that I longed to be a part of in real life. I wanted to be Jessie. Jessie, was the mom figure, took care of everything, and taught the younger children. There were many daydreams as a child of what it would be like to live in a boxcar.
I read the children the first two books; The Boxcar Children and Surprise Island. Then my best friend, Jessica, from A Pop of Jess, took over reading the stories. Her daughters loved the books and enjoyed greatly because they got to spend time with their mom. Her daughters started requesting these books more and more. To begin with Jessica was recording herself reading them so that the girls could listen at night before bedtime. However, that wasn't enough for our bookworm children.
Slowly it began to build from just Jessica's children, to my children, to the adults, and finally the entire family was listening to Jessica read. Many nights that's how the family has fell asleep is Jessica's voice luring us all to sleep with visions of four children on an adventure fill our heads. The books are very simple, but in reality the books also hold an innocence that even adults miss. What is it about these books that the kids like though?
If you ask Jessica's oldest, Avary, you'll hear this answer, "I love that they cook. They don't have anyone help them." That's an interesting answer because so many cookbook for kids insist that the children have to have an adult with them. But if you ask my middle child, Rain, why she likes them, "They go on adventures." So for kids, they love the independence. It's something this world has stopped teaching children. Most parents and schools now are sheltering their kids from the rough world. Schools overstepping what they should meddle in and parents hovering.
So, since Jessica and myself are neighbors we came up with the idea of giving the kids their own boxcars to play in. I talked to my dad and we easily purchased old boxcars for next to nothing, but we had to pay to move them which wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. But I knew I had to do it. Plus, we also had to clean out the land for the boxcars to sit and not sink into the ground which ended up being a huge project for my dad but he loved every second of it.
We are still in the process of making sure the kids have plenty of room to explore and play in the backwoods behind the house. They will all have so much fun entertaining themselves for hours. I'm not worried about our kids. They can handle themselves against most things. They are true adventurers who love to do things independently and I really think that this series of books have helped our children grow and ponder things that they wouldn't have done so on their own. The Boxcar children have many adventures that lead to different activities.
For now go find an adventure, you never know it may all start with a boxcar in the woods.
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