The Boxcar Children and the Old Motel Mystery
Written by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Illustrated by Charles Tang
Reviewed by Zachary Z. (age 8)
Isn't Florida great? If you think so the Boxcar children agree with you. They're going to Florida with their Aunt Jane to visit her good friend Kay Kingsley. When they arrive they find that Kay owns a motel called Cypress. Once the Boxcar children explore the motel they find that everything is rundown or has been treated as if a careless person owned it. The roof of the motel is missing shingles. The door to the motel is only hanging on by one hinge. The pool is full of moss and is completely empty. The tennis courts need to be weeded. Kay says that she cannot pay for maintenance. This is no problem for Henry, Jesse, Violet, and Benny. They filled, weeded, scraped, and fixed everything that needed attention. Everything was great until many strange things started to happen. For example, someone fills the pool with oranges.
The suspects are Catherine, a woman from the University of Georgia, Millicent Fair, an old woman who just retired, or Rolf who is Kay's only employee. Read this book to solve this mystery and find out who the mysterious person is behind all of the problems that have been happening around The Old Motel!