The Boxcar Children

#91 The Mystery at Skeleton Point by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 2002.

Mr. Alden’s cousin Charlotte has recently bought a house and some land at Skeleton Point that is a local landmark.  The doctor who owned the old house collected skeletons.  He was a bone expert and taught aspiring doctors and veterinarians.  It’s a creepy place with a lot of local legends about a skeleton called the Walking Skeleton that came back to life and is trying to turn itself back into a person by stealing pieces from the statuary around the house.  The statues are damaged and missing pieces, although no one really knows why.

The locals have mixed feelings about Charlotte’s desire to donate all the skeletons to a medical school and to clean up the house and renovate it.  Some people don’t like the idea of a local landmark changing.  Greenie, a man who lives nearby, is also an expert on bones who studied with the doctor, and he is upset that the doctor didn’t leave Skeleton Point to him when he died, as he had promised that he would. 

The people Charlotte had hired to carry out the renovations argue with each other about how things should be done and are not happy that Charlotte has asked the Alden children to help out with the cleaning and documenting the statuary around house.  It seems like they’re trying to distract the Aldens and keep them away from the house.

Then, some of the statues around the house disappear.  Who is taking them and why?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

The best part of the story for me was the setting. A house filled with skeletons is a bizarre and creepy idea. But, much of the mystery concerns the statues around the house instead of the skeletons, and honestly, although I had a strong feeling about who was taking the statues, there were times when I suspected other people and different motives for the thefts. The story did a good job of making multiple people look guilty.