Five-minute digest
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
Summary
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is a picture book about a man and the red steam shovel he names Mary Anne. Mike is proud of her and likes to say that she can dig in one day what a hundred men could dig in a week. Together they dig canals for big boats, cut through mountains so trains can pass, lower hills and straighten curves for highways, and scoop out deep cellars for city skyscrapers. Then new gasoline, electric and diesel shovels arrive and take all the work, and old steam shovels are sold for junk. Mike will not abandon Mary Anne. Reading that the small town of Popperville means to build a new town hall, they travel there, and Mike promises Henry B. Swap, a town official, that they will dig the cellar in a single day, and that the town need not pay if they fail. Henry B. Swap agrees with a mean smile. At sunrise they start. A little boy comes to watch, and Mike says Mary Anne works faster and better with someone looking on. Word spreads, and the constable, the postman, the telegraph boy, the milkman and others gather around the hole, cheering as the dirt flies. Just as the sun sets the cellar is finished, square and neat, but Mike has forgotten to leave a ramp, so Mary Anne cannot climb out. The crowd argues about what to do until the little boy suggests that Mary Anne stay below as the furnace of the new town hall and Mike become its janitor. Everyone agrees. The book ends with Mary Anne heating the building and Henry B. Swap spending his days in the cellar listening to Mike's stories, now smiling kindly. Burton's colour pictures show swirling dirt, sun moving across the sky and a growing crowd. Houghton Mifflin published the book in 1939, dedicated to Burton's son Michael, who is drawn as the little boy.
Top Lessons
Loyalty to an old friend
When new machines make Mary Anne old-fashioned, Mike refuses to sell her for junk and goes looking for work they can do together. The book shows young children faithfulness that does not depend on being newest or best.
Working hard with others cheering
Mike says Mary Anne digs faster and better when people watch, and the more the crowd grows, the faster the dirt flies. Children see that encouragement from friends and neighbours helps a hard job get done.
A small person with a good idea
The grown-ups cannot agree how to get Mary Anne out of the hole, and it is the little boy who finds an answer that helps everyone. Burton reminds children that their thinking matters and that a problem can sometimes be turned into a new beginning.
Keeping a promise
Mike promises to finish the cellar in one day or go unpaid, and he and Mary Anne work until the very last ray of sunlight to keep his word. The race against the sun makes the cost of a promise easy for a child to feel.