Why does she think she can?

When I was kid, I was happy that the Little Engine that Could is female, and so strong and helpful and kind. And she believes in herself—an important thing to help kids do. But, I didn’t notice that The Little Engine that Could is about meritocracy and privilege, until recently.

Sure, the engine thinks she can, and does…but she probably had a great support system, maybe her railyard was in a really nice neighborhood where she didn’t have to worry about a lot of things, maybe her wheels were greased every morning and her parents loaned her a full tender to run the engine and her rail line was new and super safe and recently inspected. And maybe the other trains weren’t in that same situation.

Luckily, there are two new books that update this store in different ways.

The first, The Three Engines, speaks to the meritocracy myth, through the “origin story” of the Little Blue Engine. By Bob McKinnon, it focuses on the attribution model (ie. why we think our attributes vs. our situations shape our lives). Longer article here on Fast Company.

The second, Race Cars, was written by Jenny Devenny and edited by Charnaie Gordon speaks more directly to white privilege with it’s tale of a white race car and a black race car with different experiences. There’s a great conversation between Devenny and Gordon at Diverse Books about the book and process together.

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