October 4–10 is Great Books Week, and the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE)  is hosting a blog tour about books to celebrate.  The prompt for today is “When I was a child, my favorite book was … because…”

I have very fond memories of reading Gertrude Chandler Warner’s The Boxcar Children.  I loved the idea that these kids were on their own and living in a boxcar.  I had traveled on a train so the thought that four children, three of them older than I was at the time, could live in an abandoned boxcar just made me dream of all the wonderful adventures that could happen.

I also was brought up, from age five, by my grandmother so a book where children were being raised by a grandparent really hit home with me.