TOOTLE—Learning to STAY ON THE TRACKS, NO MATTER WHAT! Memories of Childhood

TOOTLE was a favorite Golden Book of my childhood. Tootle is a baby train, who along with other young train engines goes to train school to learn skills such as pulling the dining car without spilling the soup, and, most importantly, to STAY ON THE TRACKS NO MATTER WHAT—even when playing in the meadow is more fun.

A week ago, I was at a street fair in Pennsylvania that featured vintage wares, and one of the booths had a box of old children’s books. And what should I see at the front of the pile—a copy of TOOTLE! Of course, I bought it.

Listening to TOOTLE being read by Fran Guzie at NENH, 1950.

TOOTLE brings back memories of my life at North East Neighborhood House in Minneapolis where I lived with my family until I was ten years old. From the windows of our apartment on the third floor we saw freight trains huffing and puffing along the tracks across the street on the other side of Bottineau Park. In my memoir SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL: Growing Up in the 1950sat North East Neighborhood House I write about my brother Steve’s fascination with trains and our exciting train trip across the river to St. Paul.

Steve’s favorite book was TOOTLE. In the photo at the beginning of my chapter about the train trip you can see Steve and a neighbor child listening raptly to Fran Guzie (one of the NENH residents) reading TOOTLE. (I appear to be engrossed in another book and only half listening. Perhaps, I had heard the story of Tootle too many times before.)

In any case, I was delighted to find TOOTLE once again and its reminder of the importance of STAYING ON THE TRACKS NO MATTER WHAT.

TOOTLE is written by Gertrude Crampton and illustrated by Tibor Gergely. It was first published in 1946 by Western Publishing Company. The copy I found at the street fair was the 24^th printing in 1969. The book is still available on Amazon.