Dawn was just passing by with her coffeepot. “Have you seen the new doughnut shop yet? My friend Hilda Ramirez is the owner.”
“Your friend owns The Donut Dispensary?” asked Henry. “Aren’t you worried that her store will take away your customers?”
“I don’t think that will happen,” said Dawn. “Our shops are different in many ways. I think Hilda will find her own customers. Besides, people who come to Delilah’s are very loyal. We always have the same five favorite doughnuts and the best coffee in town. More important, we give them a lot more than just doughnuts and coffee.”
Dawn’s big, warm smile got even bigger.
“What do you mean more than doughnuts and coffee?” asked Violet.
“You know,” said Henry. “Like Benny’s happy feeling. Right, Dawn?”
“Exactly!” said Dawn.
The door banged open. “Oh! It’s Charlie,” she said. “I have to go.” Dawn hurried to help hold open the door.
“That’s the same delivery man we saw at The Donut Dispensary,” whispered Henry.
The tall, thin man in the brown uniform frowned as he wheeled his hand truck through the door. He seemed to be complaining to Dawn, who was helping him. The hand truck banged into Jessie’s chair, and the delivery man swerved to avoid hitting Benny in the leg. The children heard the man grumble, “If you’d just clear a path to the back instead of having all these tables here, I wouldn’t have so much trouble getting my hand truck through the room!”
The Aldens watched the man push his hand truck toward the back room.
“That was strange,” said Jessie. “That man seemed so nice when we saw him at the other doughnut shop.”
“He was nice,” said Henry. “But not now. Not here.”
Add to Your Boxcar Children Collection with New Books and Sets!
The first twelve books are now available in three individual boxed sets!
The Boxcar Children Bookshelf includes the first twelve books, a bookmark with complete title checklist, and a poster with activities.
The Boxcar Children 20-Book Set includes Gertrude Chandler Warner’s original nineteen books, plus an all-new activity book, stickers, and a magnifying glass!
Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden are on a secret mission that takes them around the world!
When Violet finds a turtle statue that nobody’s seen before in an old trunk at home, the children are on the case! The clue turns out to be an invitation to the Reddimus Society, a secret guild dedicated to returning lost treasures to where they belong.
Now the Aldens must take the statue and six mysterious boxes across the country to deliver them safely—and keep them out of the hands of the Reddimus Society’s enemies. It’s just the beginning of the Boxcar Children’s most amazing adventure yet!
GERTRUDE CHANDLER WARNER discovered when she was teaching that many readers who like an exciting story could find no books that were both easy and fun to read. She decided to try to meet this need, and her first book, The Boxcar Children, quickly proved she had succeeded.
Miss Warner drew on her own experiences to write the mystery. As a child she spent hours watching trains go by on the tracks opposite her family home. She often dreamed about what it would be like to set up housekeeping in a caboose or freight car—the situation the Alden children find themselves in.
While the mystery element is central to each of Miss Warner’s books, she never thought of them as strictly juvenile mysteries. She liked to stress the Aldens’ independence and resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and making do. The Aldens go about most of their adventures with as little adult supervision as possible—something else that delights young readers.
Miss Warner lived in Putnam, Connecticut, until her death in 1979. During her lifetime, she received hundreds of letters from girls and boys telling her how much they liked her books.
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