The Boxcar Children series stumbles with Special #3: "The Mystery at Snowflake Inn"

It's difficult to read a book meant for children when the language is so clearly not childlike.  The use of proper grammar in every sentence, an utter absence of slang or local vernacular, the constant use of "yes" instead of "yeah" or "okay" make the book feel more like a 10 page beginner reader, rather than a 100+ page chapter book.

As for the mystery in this story, there seems to be a lot of jumping to conclusions on the part of the children.  The Aldens, along with their cousin, Soo Lee, are at a Vermont Inn for the holidays (it’s never stated, but the holiday is obviously Christmas).  The first incident that gets their mystery caps on is that the horses for the sleigh rides are let out of the barn.  Now, I’ve lived on farms and know that it is in fact possible to accidentally let the horses out.  Horses are smart creatures, and if you don’t lock the pens up real tight, they can finagle many types of locks open again and get out.  It’s also possibly, considering how obviously understaffed the inn is, that the person in charge of locking them up at night got distracted by one of the many plumbing issues and fire hazards around the place, and forgot to check all of the locks before leaving the barn.  However, the children automatically assume that someone intentionally let the horses out of the barn.  While this turned out to be true, it is not a necessary conclusion given the circumstances. 

The only clue the children unearthed by snooping around was that there were strange bootprints in the snow outside the barn that could match either the Inn owner’s son, Larry (who was the one to go out to the barn and discover the horses were missing, so of course his bootprints were there) or Larry’s cousin, Betsy (who’s an avid rider and goes to the barn every day, so her bootprints would be there, too).

The suspects are easy to identify, as everyone in the inn loudly expresses how they feel about every little thing at all times.  No one seems to be harboring any secret motives as their intentions are all out in the open for anyone to see.  The son wants to take over the business and make major renovations.  The cousin thinks the place is a dump and doesn’t want to be there or around anyone (she comes across as a spoiled brat).  The two kids staying at the Inn with the parents really don’t want to be there and just want to go back home.  The cook is fed up with the poor excuse for a stove she has to work with and keeps demanding that it get replaced (and when it craps out on her one too many times, she quits).  All these revelations take place in public, quite loudly.  There are no secrets at the Inn.  In fact, the “secret” passageway, that allows the culprit to sabotage the oven in the middle of the night, is shown to the Aldens by the Inn owner on their first day.

The children don’t actually solve the mystery at all.  The culprit becomes overwhelmed by the holiday festivities and confesses all.  Sure, the children are able to see how it was that the culprit did everything – but that’s hind sight rather than inductive reasoning.  They wouldn’t have been able to solidly identify the culprit based on the paltry “evidence” they’d amassed by that point.  Definitely not the Boxcar Children’s best work.