One of the earliest books that I remember my mother reading to me was The Little Engine That Could. I went online to see if I could find the cover of the edition she read to my younger brother and me, but I couldn’t be sure which one it was. It was probably the 1954 version, illustrated by George and Doris Hauman, because I remember a lot of colored pictures inside. (To see two of the early editions of the book, including the 1954 edition, click here. )
But even if I’m not certain of the pictures, I remember the story.
The good little boys and girls on the other side of the mountain needed their toys. The big trains couldn’t—or wouldn’t—make the journey. The Shiny New Engine and the Big Strong Engine were too important to deliver toys. The Kind Engine, old and rusty, was too tired.
Only the Little Blue Engine would make the attempt. She (and, yes, it was a girl engine, in my memory) said she would try. As she huffed and puffed her way up the mountain, she said, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Until she reached the crest, then on her way down to the good little boys and girls she said, “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could.”
I can still hear the cadence of my mother saying “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can” and “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could.” She made it sound just like a train engine’s wheels going clickity-clack along the tracks. I’d ridden on trains and I’d seen them at crossings. I knew how a train should sound, and that’s how Mother made it sound.
As she read, my mother made the moral of the story come through clearly—you have to try in order to succeed. “I think I can” are good words to live by.
They were words my mother lived by. She didn’t follow them to “have it all.” She followed them to shape her life the way she thought it should be shaped, to do what society and her faith told her she should do. Whether she liked it or not. She told herself, at least figuratively, “I think I can” to mold herself into the person she thought she could be.
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
Until she couldn’t. During the last visit I made to see her, just a few weeks before she died, she told me, “I can’t take it anymore.” She was done trying.
And that was all right. She’d tried long enough. And really, through her life she’d succeeded pretty well at doing what she thought she could.
What books do you remember having read to you as a child? What lessons did they teach you?
Wasn’t this one of the books on captain kangaroo? I have very fond memories of several of the books from that show. The ones my mother read me were All the Pretty Little Ponies and a book of prayers and Little Red Riding Hood. I started reading at a really young age so I don’t have a lot of memories of being read to but rather memories of reading to my mother.
Luanne, I watched Captain Kangaroo as a kid, but I don’t remember this book from there. Probably because my mother had already read it to me.
I was also an early reader. In fact, when my mother got interrupted when she was reading to us, I read ahead of her, then had to find my way back to where we’d been on the page. I think I was afraid to let her know I could read — I thought she might stop reading to me.
Theresa