35 - Mystery at the Dog Show

What we see here is Henry barely restraining some kind of Great Danematian who is set to devour Benny because the sight of his pants has driven it into an unquenchable rage. Benny almost approaches my personal level of style with his Chucks, but ruins it with the bunchy black socks, which admittedly are also at my level of style. Meanwhile...

Sorry, can I help you?

Um... Okay. Meanwhile, the dachshund is...

Okay, guys, I can't finish today because VIOLET'S DOG IS STARING AT MY SOUL.

STOP.

34 - The Mystery Horse

Oh my. This is it. This is the perfect storm. The clothing is more insane than it's been in weeks, Benny's pointing at the only thing anyone could be looking at, someone's inexplicably not looking at it anyway, Violet's squatting, the cover makes it appear that the titular mystery is solved ("Oh, there it is!")... In the future, the sages will ask of me: "Brian, what Boxcar cover is above all others?" and I will say: "The Mystery Horse." And they shall reply: "What was the mystery?" And I shall say: "I don't know, maybe the horse was missing? I don't read these." And lo, they shall say: "Just curious. Wanna play frisbees?" And I shall say: "Cool beans."

33 - The Pizza Mystery

Holy cow, I actually remember this one. I definitely own this. It's probably in my attic somewhere. It's another one of those A-team ones. They go to visit Grandpa's friends who own a pizza place near a car factory, but someone's trying to run them out of business. And the Aldens help them by, for example, putting the sauces out in the snow after the refrigerator is sabotaged before a health inspection. And it turns out the car factory owner is trying to run them out of business so that his workers will eat at the cafeteria instead, but he eats a pizza and IT'S SO GOOD IT MAKES HIM STOP BEING EVIL, so he puts in a skyway instead.

Wait, none of that makes sense. Am I remembering that right?

By the way, I occasionally make jokes about how these characters have no personalities, but this cover does highlight one consistent trait that I remember. Benny likes eating. All the time. He practically makes big Dagwood/Shaggy type sandwiches everywhere they go. Just wanted to mention, since their clothes are within acceptable limits this time. Except for the paper hats, but that's hardly their fault.

32 - Mystery in the Snow

Oh, man, it's bad enough computer issues take me away from here for so long, when I get back all they give me is this. It's like someone took The Snowbound Mystery and replaced the suspense with whimsy. And despite what children's winter fashions from 1993 usually look like, these aren't even worth mocking. So instead, I'd like to discuss the song "Winter Wonderland". When you were a kid, and you built a snowman, was is just for the art? Or did you pretend it was a real person, like the freaks in that song? I think it's so strange that they pretended their icy, mute creation was a real person. Especially a clergyman who asks intrusive and personal questions, or a frozen and unmoving circus clown. Geez, that sounds terrifying.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

In honor of MLK, I have decided to showcase ethnic diversity in the Boxcar covers. Let me see... Just checking the... Hm. No... Bear with me folks...

Dang.

Okay, see you tomorrow!

No book today.

Just got a new computer and all my thingies are saved on there. I'll be formatting and setting up automatic updates this weekend, though, so that shan't be a problem. If you need some new entertainment, why not click on these three words and visit my new project, wherein I watch all the Disney movies in order, one a week, for a year?

31 - The Mystery of the Singing Ghost

While I'm sure there's some in-story reason for them to be sitting there, I like to imagine they were just hanging out on the steps of an abandoned house (abandoned, presumably, because some genius architect decided to have the front steps lead up to a window instead of the door,) when a Ghost walked up and started Singing. And then they all got their surprised faces out. Actually, Violet's looks particularly artificial. Bet she set the whole thing up with a friend. It's probably just Nancy. As for the clothing, there's something really familiar about it, but I can't put my finger - Wait...

MIND. BLOWN.

30 - The Disappearing Friend Mystery

No, it's the Hospital Fund-Raiser Vandalism mystery. Stop lying to me, cover. I'm still getting over Nancy and her T-shirt. Speaking of which, it looks like the vandals assaulted Jessie's shirt, too. I can't get into this one. Just paint new signs, guys. You obviously didn't take long the first time. And then go look for your Disappearing Friend. Hey, maybe it's Nancy. Or "Mike".

29 - The Mystery Cruise

I'm not certain this even is a The Mystery Cruise. I think it's a normal cruise, and they're pretending it's mysterious for... I don't know, tax purposes. Look at how they're smiling. Haven't seen that since book 24. They needed this. Even Jessie's pointing is all relaxed. In other news, HENRY'S SOCKS HENRY'S SOCKS HENRY'S SOCKS.

28 - The Mystery Girl

I try to avoid actually knowing anything about these, but as I was checking Wikipedia early in my writings, the plot synopsis for this one caught my eye. "The Aldens see Nancy steal a T-shirt." Seriously. That's it. A cover promising clues in old photos, a mysterious closet, and a fireplace dashed on the rocks in favor of some shopliftery at the Gap. She's not even a Mystery Girl! She's Nancy! Maybe the Wiki editors make plot summaries like the people who work at Netflix. As far as I can tell, they just take some random unimportant thing from the first five minutes of a TV episode and make that their synopsis. Either that or they talk about it in terms to vague to mean anything. Well, I'm going to watch How I Met Your Mother. In this one, "The gang orders food at the bar, and Barney deceives a woman for sex." Events are sure to transpire!

EDIT: It occurs to me now that she could have stolen the T-shirt from the closet. Which would explain the one empty hanger. Maybe she was just trying to save it from being worn by an Alden.

PS: If anyone was wondering if I ever use this blog to hit on women, the answer is yes: Hello, lady with the cool boots and big eyes that I was helping to find books yesterday. Thanks for visiting my blog. You're super pretty. Here's that book I was telling you about. The story in question is "Utensile Strength", and it's set after Talking to Dragons.

27 - The Camp-Out Mystery.

Girls! Did you learn nothing from the Bobbsey Twins?! I asked for rampaging insanity, not a tight close-up of two scared people in a tent! Well, if there's one thing I love, it's imagining the Boxcar Children overreacting to mundane stimuli, so let's see...

THE TOP TEN THINGS JESSIE AND VIOLET ARE PROBABLY HEARING ON THEIR CAMP-OUT THAT THEY SHOULDN'T ACTUALLY BE SCARED OF

10 - Owl Hooting

9 - Branch rustling

8 - Henry peeing on a tree

7 - Blair witch

6 - Benny peeing in his sleeping bag

5 - The escaped monkey from the last book

4 - The clown from Candy Castle... no wait, they should be scared of that.

3 - Diamond Smugglers

2 - Benny getting his hand stuck in a Hunny Tree

1 - The loud clashing of their entire wardrobe

Now this is more like it.

Man, sometimes I get a little down on the Boxcars. For despite all their pointing and squatting and horrible shoes, I feel like sometimes they just aren't trying that hard. So here's a lesson, kids, from the child sleuths who came before you. Or technically during, as this one was from 1968. Anyway, I can hardly think of a thing to add to this cover. A phallic barber pole spaceship in the middle of some kind of druidic sacrifice circle is releasing a clown from a slide that appears to be the only method of entry, apart from a row of windows too close to cover separate floors. And TWO sets of twins look on! I don't even know which ones are the Bobbsey twins, or if there's more than one set, or what! This is the new gold standard, people.