By Watty Piper
A little blue engine agrees to pull a stranded train of toys over the mountain when the big engines won't, saying 'I think I can' the whole way up.
A train full of toys and good food for the children on the other side of the mountain breaks down, and it needs an engine to pull it over. A shiny passenger engine says no, that's beneath him. A big strong freight engine says no, he's too important. A tired old engine says he simply can't. Then along comes a little blue switch engine who has never been over the mountain and isn't sure she's big enough, and she says she'll try. And she pulls the whole train up the slope chanting 'I think I can, I think I can,' and down the other side saying 'I thought I could.' That's the book, and the chant is the reason it has lasted since 1930.
Of all the train books here, this is the one that isn't really about the train. It uses the engine to hand your child a line they can carry into a hard moment of their own, which is why so many grown-ups still remember it from when they were small. The little blue engine is tiny and unsure and does the job anyway, and that's a version of themselves a lot of small children latch onto. The chant gives a not-yet-reader a line to own, and the pages are bright and busy with toys, so there's plenty to point at while the words do their work.