The Alden children were searching for a home. Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are orphans and the only way they can stay together is to make it on their own. When they find an abandoned boxcar in the woods, they decide to call it home and become the Boxcar Children. Includes historical information about the author's life, work, and lasting influence a century later.

Henry, Jessie, Benny, and Violet Alden meet Mike Wood and a strange chain of events begins. Mike's house is mysteriously burned down, a man in a blue hat appears, and the Aldens' uranium mine is in danger of being sabotaged.

Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny are spending the summer in an enormous New England farmhouse where their grandfather grew up. The children must find out the truth about a devastating fire and a secret dating back to the Revolutionary War.