The Readirect Podcast
Reading Rewind: The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Today, we're revisiting a childhood favorite, "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Diving into the historical context surrounding the tale's publication, we discuss the stark differences between the 1924 original and the 1942 revision, revealing how time can color a story's message.
Take the Personality Quiz!
Explore the Boxcar Children Cookbook (someone please order this so we can know what's inside.)
Recent Reads:
- Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody
- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
Today, we're revisiting a childhood favorite, "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Diving into the historical context surrounding the tale's publication, we discuss the stark differences between the 1924 original and the 1942 revision, revealing how time can color a story's message.
Take the Personality Quiz!
Explore the Boxcar Children Cookbook (someone please order this so we can know what's inside.)
Recent Reads:
- Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody
- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
Welcome to the Readbook Podcast. My name is Abigail Hughes and I'm Emily Rojas.
Speaker 2:The Readbook Podcast is a show where we shift the conversation back to books. We discuss themes from some of our favorite books and how those themes show up in real-life experiences.
Speaker 1:On today's episode we're revisiting a childhood favorite, the Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chamber of Warner.
Speaker 2:But first, if you enjoy the podcast, we would humbly ask that you support us in a few simple ways. First, you can leave us a five-star review on Apple podcasts and let us know how much you love the show.
Speaker 1:We'd also love for you to follow us on Instagram at the redirect to podcasts. And finally, if you really, really really like the show, please share it with a friend. Sharing our show with a friend is the best way to help us grow our community of book loving. And today we're doing a reading rewind episode about the Boxcar Children, which is kind of not a rewind for me because I never read it until this morning.
Speaker 2:Transparency. Yes, this is a rewind for me because I read these books, several of the series, as a kid, but we realized you had never read them. So I thought this would be fun to get kind of me revisiting something and then you coming to something for the first time, and unfortunately, I will say I so when I went to, this book wasn't available on Libby, or it was a four-week wait, which seems like a lot for this book Seems like a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for a book that's like a million years old.
Speaker 2:You know 80 years, well, almost 100 since the original, which we'll get into. But anyways, what I want, amazon. What was on sale was a box of the first four and it was like 60% off so it was very cheap. So I was like maybe I'll read all. Anyways, I only read the first one, maybe going forward I'll get into it.
Speaker 1:So anyways well, I mean I have. I'm familiar with the canon because I'm getting married to somebody who is obsessed with these books and I am. I believe I'm correct in saying that in the future books they solve mysteries.
Speaker 2:Correct, that's what I was going to say. So this first book I didn't. I mean, you know, when you're a kid they all kind of blur together, so I didn't really remember this. But the first book to me is like a pilot episode of a TV show. It's like here's the characters, here's how they get to where they are, but the rest of the books they basically it's completely different. They just solve mysteries and they live with their rich grandpa and they kind of have like a little club of solving mysteries. So it's a it's a very different vibe. This one has absolutely no mystery to it.
Speaker 1:This one is like a weird dark origin story. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess so Okay background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for people who are like me and didn't know anything about this and didn't read it as a kid, the boxcar children is a book written by Gertrude Tramler Horner. It was originally published in 1924. And then it was actually republished in 1942. And a much simpler version that was better for young readers, and there are quite a few. I didn't realize this until I started doing research, that I was listening because I listened to this on audiobook. I was listening to the 1924 version.
Speaker 2:So I'm really curious to hear some of the differences that were highlighted.
Speaker 1:I think the 1924 version. It's like the context is everything. Here. Context is king, like we. This is before the Great Depression, right after the First World War. Sure, that's going to be really different, since the main theme of this book is homelessness. Yeah, so we're thinking about that differently. But this is a story about a family of four children who live in a boxcar. Yeah, basically.
Speaker 2:For like two days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for like a week or something.
Speaker 2:Which is funny because now they're branded as the boxcar children. So yeah, like you said, I'm going to talk about what I read, which was a 1942 version, and it's a very simple book. I mean, I guess, I don't know, in your mind when you're a kid you read like these. When you start reading chapter books for the first time, I think they feel a lot more complex and like adults than they actually are. I read this. I was kind of surprised how simple it was.
Speaker 2:Yes, but basically it starts off and these four kids, as Abiel said, are, they are looking into a bakery and they, you find out, their orphaned. Recently their parents both died somehow, which I have questions about, and Abigail has answers, we think and so they've recently died and they're like we're starving, maybe this baker will give us some bread and let us stay here for the night. So they ask the baker, who hates kids, which they had to put in there. This baker hates kids, but they're like hey, well, can you just give us one loaf of bread and we'll sleep here and then tomorrow we'll help you do all the dishes and stuff to pay you back. And so she's like oh, I actually don't like doing the dishes more than I hate kids, so I will let you stay here if you do the dishes. So they stay the night, they get the bread and then overnight the oldest kids hear them saying we have to give the little one to a children's home.
Speaker 2:There's the young one who's like seven, so like we got to get rid of that little guy, but the rest of them can work here and they seem like they'll be good. So they're like well, we're not going to let our little brother be shipped off. So they start going on the run and eventually come across this boxcar in the woods that serves as their home, and that's where they are. And so then the oldest boy, who's 14, I think Henry, he's like well, I got to go find some work, which, you know, this is pre child labor laws. So he's just going to go find a job and he comes across this doctor who's kind of benevolent and allows him to work for them. And you know, the doctor of course finds out that he's living with his family in this boxcar.
Speaker 2:And a key plot point I haven't mentioned is they actually do have a grandfather who they're also on the run from because for some reason he's not in their life at all and they think he's evil. But they know they're supposed to go live with him but they don't want to. So that's a little lot as well. I also have questions why he's not in their life. But the doctor eventually connects the family to this grandfather. He realizes that the child's description fits the description of these kids and he kind of sets up a scenario for the doctor to meet the kids so they can know not the doctor, the grandpa to meet the kids so they can realize he's not actually evil. And once they kind of come to love the grandfather on their own, they reveal to him that they have this super insanely rich grandpa and bookends with them going to live with the grandfather. He actually gets the boxcar from the woods and brings it to his property to like be a playhouse for them and they live happily ever after and solve mysteries.
Speaker 2:In the subsequent hundreds of books in this series Very similar to didn't we talk about another book? Oh, the babysitter's club we talked about in books and built us where the original author wrote, I think, about 20. And then the rest have been kind of carried on. So that is my summary of the sanitized 1942 boxcar children.
Speaker 2:Wow, let's get into it, okay, I think it is so funny that you read like the original version of this series.
Speaker 1:I was like this is kind of dark for a children's book.
Speaker 2:I was like, wow, well if a little more background before we switch over to that is that Warner, I believe she was a teacher and she kind of like would read this book out loud and eventually kept simplifying it. I'm sure there was also content simplified, but she really talks about like simplifying the language for kids to learn how to read and like make it accessible for all kinds of students. So I think it is written extremely simply in the new version compared to maybe the original text.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so let's back up a little bit and talk a little bit more about Gertrude Chandler Warner. What so? She was born in like 1890 and she lived across the road from a railroad station in Connecticut. She grew up extremely wealthy, very in a very well to do family, but she was ill for most of her life and was really confined to home. So, like after she went to college she came back to her hometown in Connecticut to be a teacher and that's where she ended up running the Boxcar Children. But she was really confined to her home and so a lot of people think she's like sitting at her house looking across the street at these like rail cars and imagining a world where she could be independent and like free, also free from her wealth.
Speaker 1:I read an article by the New Yorker, a New Yorker article called the Boxcar Children and the Spirit of Capitalism, and cool. I have some dark things to tell you about this book. So, again, the first iteration of this book was published in 1924. That is right. After World War I it's also like Prohibition Era we're in, or yeah, right, or is it?
Speaker 2:Prohibition yeah, the 20,. Yeah, no right.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this is the Rurain 20s. This book is actually a rebuke of hedonism, gluttony, like excess wealth, partying, and not necessarily so. This is pre-Great Depression. So the message of this book is if you work hard and you live a modest life, good things will come to you. So the kids are and they are embodying like traditional capitalistic, like family roles. So the older brother goes off to work, the older sister takes care of the little kids and gathers blueberries and chills milk bottles in the creek and stuff. So it's not a reaction to extreme poverty and homelessness, it's a glorification of a traditional work ethic. And the reward that the kids get for like making it on their own and like pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and stuff is that in the end they get to be rich and live in this house with their grandfather, who's actually not bad, or is he? Because I have some dark things to tell you about the grandfather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense, because I have a lot of questions about him, so I would love to hear more about what's his deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, the origin of the grandfather is that he didn't want his daughter to get married to their dad, and so they had. The parents had a broken relationship with him. The reason that the dad, the grandfather, didn't want the mom to get married to the dad because the dad was an alcoholic. And at the beginning of the book it does not start with kids looking in a bakery, it starts with townspeople talking about these kids and that they move into this town with their dad, who was so drunk he couldn't walk up the stairs to his house and a few days later he died of alcohol poisoning.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. So I mean, at least it does seem to know like the grandfather was valid in that, but Like I too, would not want my child to marry that kind of person.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's a little scary and weird about the grandfather. So the 1924 book shines a little more light on that. So his name is JH Cordice and he owns all these steel mills. Is that revealed, that's obvious, in the 1942 book.
Speaker 2:To my recollection and obviously I could be wrong because I did skim some parts of it I don't think it's specifically necessarily gone into detail like what his deal is, it's just that he's really rich.
Speaker 1:Okay, so he owns a steel mill that you can see from the town and that is why the kids are like on the run from the grandfather.
Speaker 2:The whole book, Okay that is not like on the lamb.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're on the land for the grandfather because he's gonna find out like.
Speaker 1:he put this ad out like looking for the kids, yes, yes and he's like they're trying to go farther and farther away from the steel mill so they can be outside of, like his scope. Okay, here's where it gets dark. So Cordyce the grandfather is obsessed with quote the vigor of young boys' bodies. Yeah, that was odd. That was odd. That was not left out. If he had a weakness, it was for healthy boys Boys. This is from the book. If he had a weakness, it was for healthy boys, boys running without their hats, boys jumping, boys throwing rings, boys swimming, boys vaulting on a long pole. Once a year Cordyce even organizes a public field day to encourage such physical activity and perfection. And some people's view, this fixation brings to mind both the anxiety about the male population depletion following World War One and the vogue at times for eugenics.
Speaker 1:Oh, no so it's possible that grandpa was eugenicist light, yeah, all right, and that's why they're kind of scared of him. And then also at the end of the book, when they are reunited with the grandfather and they find out that he, like, is chill with them. Actually he was like I have all of this money and I'll give you money no matter what. But you will only be satisfied in life if you work. So what's the older boys' name?
Speaker 2:Henry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's like Henry you'll take over my steel mill one day and the rest of you will go to college. I'll give you money, but you need to go to college so that you can learn how to work.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting about this book that the rewrite was in 1942 after the Great Depression, because pre-Great Depression, the moral of the book is work hard and good things will come to you, yeah, and then, less than 10 years after the book was published, a lot of bad things happened to people who worked really hard. Yeah, and also it would be weird to kind of glorify homelessness, right After all, these people lived in Hooverville and slums and stuff like that. But anyways, going back to the author, a lot of people think that she wrote this book because she had these visions of a self-sustaining life where she could be independent, where she could work hard enough, the things would work out well for her.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean I get it. Like. My thought when I was reading this book was like, yeah, I get why a kid would like to read this book, because I used to dream of independence and being able to do things for myself as a kid.
Speaker 1:All the time, yeah, I fantasized about, like you know, doing my own thing and making my own life. I wanted nothing more than that as a child. The thing that does not connect to me is that the siblings were just like let's all work together, we won't fight, we won't argue, no one will bust each other around and we'll all be happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and what is always surprising to me often with these things is how young they are. When you read, you know. When you're and I get like the 1920s, a 14 year old boy probably was actually going to work at the steel mill, so maybe he was a little more mature than a 14 year old boy today, right, but yeah, I'm always surprised because you always like, when you're eight, a 14 year old seems so old. But in this it's like okay, the oldest child is 14. I think from there it goes down to 10. And then there's like two little ones and yeah, they are like figuring this stuff out and making meals for themselves.
Speaker 2:And again, I understand different times, whatever, and I'm sure, like, if you're in a desperate situation, you know you would rise to the occasion, maybe, but I don't know. That was just so interesting to me that it was like they just innately know okay, we can, we can. These are blueberries, we can gather them and we can make a dam and like how to handle the little one when, like, he doesn't like to take a bath. So we're going to tell him he's like a little bear and pretend, play, pretend with him so he won't get mad. It's just stuff like that. We're like, okay, there's no way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, how do you know that? Yeah exactly the parentification of the oldest two kids. Yeah, also like they were. Like let's eat blueberries in a bowl of milk.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, they were like so excited about that.
Speaker 2:That is the thing that stood out to me most of my mind remembering this book was the food, and it honestly held up way better than the freaking molasses and bread that we had to eat for a little house on the prairie. If you guys miss that, it was disgusting.
Speaker 1:But that was crazy.
Speaker 2:Like once, henry, he gets his first job, he has a little bit of money, like $1, which back then was obviously a fortune, actually and he bought dried meat, fresh bread they had gathered blueberries from the woods, these like ice cold glasses of milk, honestly, and butter that still sounded so good.
Speaker 2:It's. I remember like the only thing I honestly remember about this book, besides the boxcar part, was that he like that meal of the bread and the butter and the dried meat, but also, for some reason, like specifically, they had found these cups in a dump and I remembered the cup they had found with like ice cold milk in it. That, to me, was my just ingrained in my mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's like what Zach talks about all the time too, when he talks about it because, like it just sounded so good, he's like I want to take a lunch to with me to work. That's like a piece of bread, a hunk of cheese and like an apple and a cold glass of milk. Yeah, no, what's it? Because?
Speaker 2:that just sounded so good as a kid, you know, I don't know, there's just something about like I think too, when I was a kid I don't know if you agree with this, but I love to cook dinner for my family. I just loved, like I loved it. I always would ask my parents if I could cook a meal. And now I'm like I have to do this every day. I mean, I still love to cook, I really do. But you know, there's something about it when you're a kid of, like you said, like that independence, the autonomy being able to pick what I wanted to cook and like present it for everyone. And you know, like I think there's part of that where they there's one scene where I don't know if you got the scene, but there's a scene where they like throw potatoes into the fire and char them and then it's essentially like a baked potato. Oh yeah, the baked potato.
Speaker 1:They cooked it on the ash of pine cones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then they, it's like blackened, but then they open it. It's so delicious and I don't know just something about them, like putting these little recipes together. It just sounded so fun. And again, like you said, to be independent. I mean, who didn't want a clubhouse? Who didn't want to be on your own, maybe not necessarily with your siblings all the time, but if you had your friends and you could go find the boxcar or, honestly, your siblings, sometimes you know when you were getting along, maybe not consistently as much as these siblings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know that that is a fantasy and it's not like you want your parents to die.
Speaker 2:But in this okay, in the retelling version, which is one of my questions which you did help answer, although I would love to like did the mom die before the dad? Is that implied, yeah, yeah, yeah, Because kind of in this book you're like they just both are dead now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually in this book in the first version, they kind of reflect on the death of their parents quite a bit. It's like it's something they think about and like. So you hear some of their inner world. That's kind of a bummer Like um. So yeah, that's why it's like a little bit darker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely a lot darker. Yeah, and this one it's. It's just such a small part. I think that's why maybe it is more glamour or like glorified homelessness, because in the retelling like the sad there's no sadness. They're not sad about their parents dying, really, they just, and they're treating everything like an adventure. It's just like come on, guys, let's go Like we're on the run from these people who are trying to kidnap us. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like sanitizing the fact that, like usually, like well, actually all the time, like something bad has happened to you to cause you to be homeless, yeah, so you know that's it's not worth it. Yeah, and this is actually my question to you. Yeah, if you were the boxcar, children like, do you think you could cut it? No, you've, that's a. You're not built for this.
Speaker 2:Absolutely not. I don't think. I mean, I don't know what as a kid what would you have?
Speaker 1:done differently, like if you were the oldest kids, one of the oldest kids, and like you were in this situation.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would be so I would be so much more like well, I know we think the grandpa's mean, but we're supposed to be with an adult, like we're not supposed to be on our own, we're not just going to go out on our own. I would not have done that. I would have waited for the grandpa to come collect us and then, like we need an adult, I don't care if he's mean we had an alcoholic dad. I mean, for God's sake, he can't be worse than right.
Speaker 1:You know, that's why I was thinking I was like if I was a kid, even if I was that scared of the grandpa, I would have gone somewhere. I mean, maybe not the, the bakers, obviously, because they were mean, but I would have gone to somewhere else. But I would. The thought wouldn't have run it in my mind. Let me run away into the woods with a dollar in my pocket.
Speaker 2:No, literally never, never. I would have absolutely gone with the grandpa, for sure.
Speaker 1:When you were a kid, did you ever like run away from home?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did I just down the street, you know, dramatically I think I remember packing like a granola bar and maybe a book or something and a bag and I just went down the street and then no one came and looked for me and that ruined my you just, you, just sat outside character syndrome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I lived in it wasn't like a cul-de-sac, but it was, you know, a circle neighborhood, so you could just walk all the way around the neighborhood in a circle. So I think I just walked down to one of the hills and like sat on the corner for a while and then came back. So I would have never run. That's my whole point. I never would have actually gone anywhere, because I'm such a rule follower and I just like crave adult supervision, so there's no way. I would have not ever even made it to the baker. I would have been like we're going to stay home, we're, you know, grandpa's going to come get us and that's going to be our life now. So you guys need to stop trying to run away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, personally, what do you think? How would you have cut it?
Speaker 1:Um, I think I would have cut it more than you I think I would have given it more time than you.
Speaker 2:I think you would have actually run away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did run away. Once there was like a tennis court in my neighborhood that. I ran away to and I stayed there actually for like a couple hours. Yeah, that's committed.
Speaker 2:At what point, as a parent, do you think, okay, we really need a parent on the show because I'm talking about parenting. But um, at what point, as a parent, do you think you would? Actually because I'm such an anxious person if my kid ran away, I would think I would be like, oh my God, like what if something happens to them? But I also understand there's like they're just threatening that to a certain extent. But so you know, you were on a couple of hours. At what point do you think you start to get worried? And then, in this day and age, if the kid actually goes missing, you know all the true crime podcasts are going to be blaming you if you don't go after them.
Speaker 1:Totally. I mean, I remember when I was like I'm leaving, I'm running away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I'm being for real, I packed the backpack.
Speaker 1:I have food in here. My mom was like okay, do you think? She was like all right, do you need anything else, like should you put anything else in there? And so I was mad.
Speaker 2:So I was like I'm really going to stay here, like that makes it work, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Until she changes her tune like don't patronize me, like do not bet against me. No, I completely understand that. And so I think eventually my sister, who was an adult but lived with us at the time, was like she was like driving around the neighborhood or something like that, and she saw me. She was like what are you doing? She was like just come back with a stupid. And I was like you know, so I did get dark and I was like yeah, yeah, you weren't committed.
Speaker 2:No, exactly, I'm not going to go sleep on some pine needles, that's the other thing. I want a life of luxury. So they, in your version they knew the grandpa was rich. In my version I don't think they knew he was rich. Um, necessarily, I don't remember if they, if they, that was revealed, but um, either way, I'd be like, okay, he might be me, but he is rich.
Speaker 1:At least we're going to have a bed, you know maybe at least we go there, we steal some stuff, then we leave and sell it and then we actually make a life for ourselves. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Um, I would say the biggest reach in this book as well. Just as we're on that topic, there's one scene and again I don't know if you got the scene, but uh, where they teach the youngest kid to read in one day. Um, I got that one.
Speaker 1:He was like I, I can't can. I was like. He was like, don't worry, Like he was hooked on sponics.
Speaker 2:Anyways, that's me. I was like there's no way they are teachers spending months teaching kids how to read out there and a 10 year old taught this guy to read in one day. Like the the oldest one goes out for work and he comes home and they're like we have a surprise for you. We taught James how to read. I think his name was James or something. We taught him how to read, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:That was crazy.
Speaker 2:Um, I thought we could take, if you want, the boxcard children personality test which is on boxcardchildrencom. I linked it in the. I think everyone would love to know um what's what's child?
Speaker 1:I'm on the box chart. Yeah, keep scrolling down.
Speaker 2:Keep scrolling down. So if you want to follow along your boxcardchildrencom slash activities and and you can kind of scroll and you can find your boxcard children personality, maybe I'll get the dog.
Speaker 1:Okay. So the first question. Oh yeah, the dog. We didn't even talk about him, but he was.
Speaker 2:we'll get there the main character of this whole thing. It's the best part. It's a beautiful.
Speaker 1:the first question. It's a beautiful Saturday morning. What are you busy doing? Waiting for breakfast to be ready? Hmm, waffles. Messaging your friends. You're putting together a vote on which movie to see today. Taking photos, because the light in the backyard is perfect. Playing Minecraft. I'm taking photos. What kind of question is this?
Speaker 2:Um well, I would say waiting for breakfast to be ready, but that's not me. I would be making the breakfast.
Speaker 1:Uh exactly, it's an important distinction.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say playing Minecraft because honestly I'd mostly be like watching Netflix or something, but that's the closest version I can go.
Speaker 1:Okay, next question. It's your job to keep your four year old twin cousins entertained for an hour until dinner is ready. What do you do? I'm going to tell them a really funny story that I might get in my head.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say get my old blocks out and help them construct Castle, because one of the options was go fish. Uh, I do not think a four year old is capable of go fish. Please feel free to reply if you know.
Speaker 1:Four year old, um, okay, Go fish is such a boring game. It is so boring?
Speaker 2:I would, at least. That's why kids. Okay, your dental checkup finished early, so you have a little time to spend at the nearby mall before your ride comes. Where do you go? Um okay, uh, cool notebooks. I'm going to go. Look at cool notebooks.
Speaker 1:Let's see, I'm going to say notebooks too. Yeah, the options are in your in search of a cool set of notebooks. There's a roller coaster at the mall, um, there's fountain where you can watch the water and there's a little like a store. But I'm going notebooks. Okay, your school is planning a big summer carnival. What job did you volunteer for? Oh, um, so we have sound system, drawing the posters, running the popcorn stand and being in charge of the raffle. I'm doing the raffle, for sure, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:That's a good one. I'm going to go with popcorn because I love popcorn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that one, you have to interact with more people because you actually have to serve the popcorn. That's true. The raffle like you just could do all the planning, go on stage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Draw the ticket. Okay, what's your ideal vacation? A big city? A huge theme park? A road trip, or a big city, or a peaceful beach? Road trip, big city.
Speaker 1:Okay, is your turn to pick the restaurant for lunch? You choose Chinese pizza, sunny diner with a really friendly owner and the cool art or the build your own sandwich shop. Ooh.
Speaker 2:This is tough because I would pick any of these diner. I'm going Chinese. Okay, what's the one clothing item you'll never give away? Converse all star sneakers, your grubby work jeans, your army surplus jacket with the useful pockets or your superhero play cape? I'm going with sneakers because I never give it a shoes, because I honestly hate buying shoes. It's a personality flaw, but it is what it is, me too.
Speaker 1:All right, you're camping. What's the most important thing in your life? What's the most important thing in your backpack? Reusable bag to pick up litter, snack mix, swiss army knife or your flashlight?
Speaker 2:Always, I can't be hungry. Yeah, snack.
Speaker 1:What are you? I'm Violet Henry.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, oldest sibling, oldest sibling, hive this is people count on me because I rarely lose my cool. How do you got that from my Chinese restaurant? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I I am violent, thoughtful and creative. You tend to notice things other people miss. Statistically talented and a great listener too. Love it Well, thank you. Boxcar children calm, thank you, there's a lot of activities on there.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's what I'll say, and you can weigh in on your version as well. Maybe, compared to the little house on the prairie, I think this book holds up pretty well.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, way better.
Speaker 2:Obviously there may be some implied eugenics but it's not explicit, so just no kids gonna pick up on that, you know, and it does not. Okay, yours was way more descriptive about the loving little, not little boys, loving boys thing. Mine just said like he likes Boys running and there's just a race. It wasn't like a whole field day, it's just this big race that anyone can participate in this.
Speaker 1:One is like they have like different performance, like and yeah. Well, that's like there's different events too far.
Speaker 2:So anyways, but I think this there's no Explicit racism, there's no like like. It's not as problematic as you would think for something from the 20s, so I think this can hold up. You can still have your kids read this and there is a lot of activities on that boxcar children website. So if you do have a kid, you know there's like coloring sheets and little games they can play and obviously a personality quiz and Just a lot of different interactive things they can do. So yeah, I don't know, I would say this holds up.
Speaker 1:I would rate this Fine, yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, there's like better stuff where you can actually learn something. This is a lot about food. I would say 90% of the book is about their food.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I don't know, I mean it. Yeah, compared to, honestly, we the bars on the floor with little house on the prairie, so Truly. But I came into this expecting worse because I'm like I went into a little house thinking it would be fine, it was horrible, so I was expecting the worst. And I was more surprised that there was no like weird comments or I don't know, like it's just so easy for that to appear. So this was not that bad. Obviously, with the gender, old things you know pretty, pretty entrenched in those, but I mean it was a time, I guess, so you could talk about what things were like in the 20s or 40s. It seems a very unclear when these books are actually set, especially the later books.
Speaker 1:They kind of just in olden times. Yeah, go with olden times I. Am there's a decision. I'm glad we read this one.
Speaker 2:I wasn't glad to. There's also a boxcar children cookbook which I put the link in here and I wish I had.
Speaker 1:I wonder what would even this be in there, because a lot of the things they eat are just like ingredients.
Speaker 2:Well, someone I was reading one review that was like this is actually harder than they say, this I think it's for kids. And someone was like there are actually some complex things in here, like it says, you know, to put yeast into warm water. So that was some complaints. But you know, again, like I said, there's a lot of interactive things to do with the series, so yeah, I'm ready, ready fun one. Well done great job, all right. What have you read recently?
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm trying. I need to actually go remind myself of the name of the author, but I recently read the rabbit hole. Have you heard of this? I have not heard of this.
Speaker 1:It is my gosh, I suck Kate Brody. It is her debut novel and it is a book about this young woman who's around our age, like late, late 20s, who was like 10 years ago. Her sister disappeared and the case went cold, and then just recently her dad took his own life and as she's going through her dad's Things, she finds all of the he never let the case go and that he has been.
Speaker 1:Yes trying to figure out what happened this whole time. Sure, so she's picking up, kind of some of the leads that he left off and she gets sucked down the rabbit hole of True crime and kind it kind of gets dark. So like there are pages of this book that are like reddit threads, where she's like in these reddit threads about her sister, about her family, she has a very kind of interesting patchwork family, like her mom was married three times, the dad has a past, and then she meets this young woman named Mickey who her dad had been working with, and that gets weird and it's kind of about like she's getting so obsessed with solving the mystery of her sister, but actually even more so than that obsessed with this culture and like the people around her that are in this community that are trying to solve the murder. So it's kind of like there's a look at the dark side of true crime and and Anyways, it's what the word I would most use to describe this book is bingeable there are.
Speaker 1:It reads really quickly, it's fast-moving and, like I said, they're like there's there's pages and pages that are reddit threads where she's commenting back to people, which is really interesting as someone who likes reddit and there's no chapters. It's just kind of like straight through. I think that you would like it.
Speaker 2:It is kind of dark. Yeah, it's our handhold. I'll say that there's like yeah but it's called the rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:It's exactly what I would like. Yeah, I think you would love it.
Speaker 2:Amen. Unfortunately, only the audio book was available on Libby, so I hope that's an equally enjoyable experience, but it sounds like an interesting-.
Speaker 1:I cannot attest to the audio book Right yeah, but yeah like, keep me updated. Tell me what you like, I will, I don't like it, or what your thoughts are.
Speaker 2:But I'll get back to you guys. Yeah, ok, so I recently read this book and I still don't totally know how I feel about my writing of it. So, tbd, I'll just let you guys be the judge. But it's called Six Wakes by Mer Lafferty, and I think the description of this book is like made.
Speaker 1:Did you say six weeks or six weeks?
Speaker 2:Wakes.
Speaker 2:Ok, yeah, so the description of this book is like you could have cooked it up in a lab for me.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, basically this book takes place in sort of the distant future of humanity, where cloning has been perfected and essentially they can, like I mean basically 3D print a clone at perfect, you know, because now the cloning we have in our minds is you would have to be reborn as a baby or whatever, but in this world they can just print you as like a 20-year-old or your physical peak, and they also can map your mind and all your memories.
Speaker 2:They've, like, figured out the technology to do that. So people who choose to be cloned essentially are kind of living forever because they continue to just back up their mind print a new clone, put the mind into the new clone and they have all their memories, they have everything that's happened to them. So that's the world we're in, and Earth is dying also. And they found a nearby-ish planet that can sustain human life, they think. And so there is a spaceship that is taking like thousands of people who are in cryosleep to this new planet, but the ship is being manned by clones who are continually basically dying and recloning themselves so that they can, you know, because the mission will take hundreds of years to reach this new planet so they can actually make it.
Speaker 1:So are there like evolutions within them? There are some of that.
Speaker 2:But how the book starts sorry, there's a lot of explanation involved in this one.
Speaker 2:The book starts with all six I think it's six of the clones waking up and all of their previous clones have been murdered. The last memory they have is days before the ship actually took off and when they wake up, the ship has been in flight for about, I think, 25 or 30 years. So they have no memory of actually. They remember being asked to go on this mission. They remember touring the ship, they remember what their jobs are supposed to be, but they have no memory of the mission itself and they know that one of them, or multiple of them, has murdered all of them. They're all dead, so there's no way to know. And there's a ship AI that's been hacked and it also has no memories. So this book is kind of them trying to figure out what happened, what the series of events led to this event and how they can prevent it from happening again. And also, when they wake up, the ship has been turned back toward Earth, so it seems like they were trying to turn around and go back instead of continuing on their course.
Speaker 2:So it starts off I mean an amazing premise. I love space, I love science fiction, I love thrillers, I love murder mysteries. So it starts off really strong. But I think maybe there was just too much going on and then the ending felt a little rushed to me. So I feel like the first part genuinely was creeping me out. I couldn't read it at night but it was so fast-paced. And then there was just a lot of backstory with each of the clones that I felt kind of took away from the ending a little bit. So I don't know, I would do like 3.5 stars. It was really good, I would recommend it. But I just felt like I was a little disappointed because the premise to me was like OK, this is exactly the kind of book I want. And then I just felt like the ending was like oh OK, no, that was it.
Speaker 1:With all the build up, there was just a little bit of a disappointment. So close to the caution.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really good, though I think, yeah, if you're a space mystery person like me, I think you'll like it, and I love that trope. I mean, it's very Project Hail Mary of someone waking up and they don't have a memory of how they got there, and then you're finding out with them.
Speaker 1:I would love to be able to reread that.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's the problem. Project Hail Mary is so good. It is so good that this is like I don't know, it's just not as good version of that. But I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in here. Interesting like ship of theseus type thing of is the clone you, is it really you? Or just because it has all your memories that doesn't mean it's really you, and the choices you make and the ethics of all that. So I don't know. I thought it was really good, but maybe a little disappointing in the end. So that's my review.
Speaker 1:OK, that does sound like a book hooked up for you in a lab. Yeah, it was quite.
Speaker 2:It was honestly you couldn't put it down and did generally fright me, so that's a high review. Like they had fun reading it. That's how good.
Speaker 1:Well, also, ok, I will. I did just started this, so cannot give a review yet. But I did start reading Bride by Ali Hazelwood. Ok, for, like supernatural, yes, we've seen a lot about this, about this.
Speaker 2:A lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:A lot of stuff. I will come back to my third report next time. I just wanted to play at that stage. Ok, I'm looking forward to hearing about that. Ok, all right, y'all.
Speaker 2:Bye, we'll see you later Bye MUSIC.