Mystery Ranch (The Boxcar Children #4) by Gertrude Chandler Warner

★★★★

*** Warning: This review contains spoilers! ***

I love how each book takes the children to a new and interesting location. This time, it's an old family ranch out west! What fun!

This book starts out in a pretty amusing way. The children all freak out because Grandfather "banged the door, and all he said was 'Hello.'" Oh, my! Violet even turns white with concern. Hahahahaha! What propriety in this family!

So in this book, the adventure starts when the children meet their Aunt Jane (Grandfather's sister), and we finally get a glimpse of a possible reason for why the children never met their Grandfather until after their parents died. We don't learn much, but it sounds like Grandfather used to be pretty arrogant.

We also get to know Violet a little better. We knew she was kind (as all the Alden children are), but now we see that she is also gentle, she likes to take care of other people, and she wants to be a nurse when she grows up.

Interestingly, while other books in the series had the children eating common foods like hot dogs, hamburgers, and baked potatoes, this time, we see a few unusual foods being fed to Aunt Jane, who is not feeling well. She drinks orange juice mixed with a beaten egg, and she eats "milk toast", which is hot milk poured over a piece of toast with a little salt. Is it just me who hasn't heard of these foods? Or has the American diet had some drastic changes in the last 50 years?

Anyway, as for the "mystery" itself. I guess it was a little thin in this book, mostly centered around the identity of a Mystery Man. It started to get good when the children discovered the make-shift hut in the woods, but that was resolved so quickly that there was hardly much time for any suspense to build. Still, there are probably enough questions floating around to keep young readers interested, and that's the whole point, after all.

Finally, I can't help but feel a little worried about the Alden family, now that we know a bit more about uranium than they did back when this book was written. Clearly the value of uranium was known, but apparently not the health risks. With uranium in the chimney, everyone in this house has an increased risk of developing cancer! At least we know that Aunt Jane is still in good health at age 70, which is comforting.