The New York Times -bestselling tale of four orphaned siblings who will do anything to stick together, featuring more than thirty original illustrations. Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden take care of one another. They have no parents, no other family-except for a grandfather they don't care to see-and no home . . . until the night they find the boxcar. Old, rusty, lonely, and abandoned in the woods, it's the perfect home for four brave children...

Relates the exploits of the four Alden children as they locate a missing man. The Boxcar children are determined to solve the mystery that surrounds an old yellow house on their grandfather's property. Strange things have happened in that house where long ago a man disappeared.

The children are spending the summer on their own private island but there is a mysterious stranger on the island.