I really think that the Boxcar Children is one of the best series for beginning readers of chapter books.  From my experience, kids love them once they discover them.  The four Alden children are relatable to today’s kids, even decades after they first originated.  This graphic novelization of the series is the second one I’ve seen, the first illustrated by Mike Dubisch.  This other series was also published by ABDO and the set up is much the same:  same style for table of contents, same picture identification of the main characters at the beginning of the book, same type, and even same color pages.  The main difference is that this version illustrated by Ben Dunn has ‘Manga’ overtones to it.  The peoples’ faces all resemble each other.  In this story there is a boy who wants to go to college, and he looks the same age as Benny, who is six.  This same boy’s mother also looks about six  years old.  The story and adaptation is fine, but it’s the illustrations that don’t fit.  In the first version illustrated by Dubisch, the people look their age and not everyone looks alike, which makes it much more appealing.  I’ll stick with the first one.