The Almighty Creative Henry by Corey

The Almighty Creative Henry by Corey - April 2014 Scholarship Essay

I was a huge fan of The Boxcar Children series. The character who influenced me was the oldest

child, Henry Alden. With the help of his sister Jessie, he was able to take care of his younger siblings

Violet and Benny. In the second book of the series, Surprise Island, the children spend their summer on an

island. The island was bought by their grandfather’s father, and it would be just like staying in the

boxcar again.

Henry stuck out to me and influenced me because he did all the manual labor. In Surprise Island,

he helped turn the four stalls in the barn into their little bedrooms. He used his creative mind and made

a table out of a long board and two empty barrels. He helped to maintain their garden on the island, and

while his sisters shelled some peas he made cupboards. The cupboard was going to hold their dishes, their

pot and pans, and their groceries. Later on in the book, the kids decided to turn the upstairs of the barn

into a museum. Henry found some boards and made some tables for the museum, so they kids could put their

displays on them. Even though Henry did a lot of work, he still had fun and loved everything he did.

As a child I was never creative or inventive. I first heard about the boxcar children in the

second grade. Once in a while my teacher would read aloud to my class. After reading a few books from the

series, I was hooked on them. I noticed a change in the way I thought about things after reading them. My

papers in class and my projects in art started getting more creative. My teachers were surprised at my

sudden twist of creativity. At the end of the school year my teacher gave me Surprise Island as a gift. I

was extremely happy and read it over and over again that entire summer.

Every summer since then I always ready Surprise Island at least once. My creativity started

getting bigger and bigger the more I read it. I felt like I was starting to develop the same mindset as

Henry. For instance, in seventh grade I needed to make an instrument that could play Mary had a Little

Lamb in music class. I thought about what Henry might do, and decided to make a xylophone out of wood. I

also made a mallet out of wood, so I did not have to use my hands to play the xylophone. Thanks to my

handy work and reading about Henry, I was able to become a very creative human being. I am eternally

grateful to Gertrude Chandler Warner, the author of The Boxcar Series and the creator of Henry Alden.