The Boxcar Children
By Gertrude Chandler Warner (1890-1979)
Gertrude Chandler Warner got the idea for The Boxcar Children while she was sick at home during World War I. She wrote them mainly for the students in the first grade Sunday School class she was teaching. There are 135 total books in The Boxcar Children series, but only the first 19 were written by Warner. The first book, The Boxcar children was written in 1924, all the way up to the last book written by Warner, Benny Uncovers a Mystery in 1976.