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A review by octavia_cade
The Boxcar Children Beginning: The Aldens of Fair Meadow Farm by Patricia MacLachlan
fast-paced
3.0
It's funny. I started reading this and it struck me almost instantly that it was historical fiction. The original books never felt that way to me, even though they were set in the past. I suppose that's the definition of genre, with historical fiction being different from fiction written by historical authors. Which doesn't have much to do with this little prequel, really. Just a random observation.
The kids have loving parents, who do their best to help others and so the kids have clearly learned the same. I note, though, that it's not entirely generational. My reaction to the kids' grandfather, in the Boxcar books, has tended to be not very positive. From the children's point of view, he comes to be seen as this loving wish-fulfillment sort of figure as the books go on, but reading these books for the first time as an adult, without the memory of childhood enjoyment, he often comes across as someone who doesn't always treat other people well. Such is the case here. His grown son doesn't want to live where grandfather says he should live, and so the entirely family's cut off (and not for the first time; I remember how Grandfather Alden abandoned his sister for decades because she wouldn't choose to live where her younger brother insisted she should). He's not a nice man.
It's no surprise the kids don't love him here, or trust him. The bigger surprise is that their father learned how to treat people well from someone, enough to teach them, because he sure as hell didn't learn it from his own parent.
The kids have loving parents, who do their best to help others and so the kids have clearly learned the same. I note, though, that it's not entirely generational. My reaction to the kids' grandfather, in the Boxcar books, has tended to be not very positive. From the children's point of view, he comes to be seen as this loving wish-fulfillment sort of figure as the books go on, but reading these books for the first time as an adult, without the memory of childhood enjoyment, he often comes across as someone who doesn't always treat other people well. Such is the case here. His grown son doesn't want to live where grandfather says he should live, and so the entirely family's cut off (and not for the first time; I remember how Grandfather Alden abandoned his sister for decades because she wouldn't choose to live where her younger brother insisted she should). He's not a nice man.
It's no surprise the kids don't love him here, or trust him. The bigger surprise is that their father learned how to treat people well from someone, enough to teach them, because he sure as hell didn't learn it from his own parent.