Take a Train Ride
And be sure to have pencil and paper, alluring snacks, time to talk, listen, and think, and most important of all, bring your imagination.
Who can resist the pull of Platform Nine and Three-Quarters: “Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while carts of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.” Harry has left the world of Muggles behind and is finally on his way to Hogwarts. Fueled with Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Harry shares the company of Ron Weasley as a photo of “the greatest wizard of modern times”, Albus Dumbledore, comes and goes on his collecting card.
Harry Potter’s years to come at Hogwarts are planted in these early moments. Two boys, outcasts with unfathomable depths of courage, share a compartment, share some food, share small bits of knowledge concerning their vastly different worlds, and an enduring friendship begins. Harry and Ron face one another without judgement. This simple act of trust and kindness will be drawn upon continuously as they laugh and cry, rejoice and are defeated, face danger and discover magical worlds. Each will have his character repeatedly tested and each will draw on friendship and love for strength.
Although Hedwig and Scabbers find easy passage aboard The Hogwarts Express, everyday pets are not always welcome on trains. Mr. Putter has his “good cat”, Tabby and Mrs. Teaberry has her “lollypup”, Zeke when the ticket woman informs them, “Pet’s can’t go on trains.” Poor Zeke, his traveling jacket is filled with “bones and balls and little doggy lollipops.” Poor Mr. Putter, “Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine anything nicer than being on a train with Tabby and Mrs. Teaberry and Zeke, eating banana crunchies. It would be the best train ride of his life.” It is Mrs. Teaberry's homemade banana crunchies that confirm a way must be found for these two friends and their two fine pets to take their trip.
Although a seemingly unlikely pair, Mr. Putter and Tabby and Mrs. Teaberry and Zeke, are great friends and great neighbors collectively. Mrs. Teaberry nudges Mr. Putter out of his dull routines and Mr. Putter looks out for Mrs. Teaberry with neighborly kindness and respect for her creative ideas. Also, with this easy reader series, new readers learn care for companions, both human and animal, and discover respect for aging. Quiet conversations and memories are highlighted and treasured. Mr. Putter & Tabby Take the Train and additional titles are true gems.
Four strangers leave Edinburgh by train and their journey to London encourages sharing of past lives and loves. “If it were not for the train journey on that day, these four (David, Kay, Andrew, and Hugh) would never have met. “Journeys may be like that, may bring people together who would otherwise not have known of each other’s existence.” Strangers at first, but good listeners, and so the conversations begin. Andrew wins Hermione by discovering a missed train in a painting, David remembers the fond farewell he witnessed between two young men at a train station which turns his thoughts to Bruce from his childhood summers in Maine, Kay recalls her father’s life running a train siding in Hope Springs, the Outback of Australia, Hugh exits a train at the wrong stop and meets Jenny. All stories are shared aloud, except for David’s, only the reader shares his thoughts.
The beauty of Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith can be found in the layering of stories and journeys, of tangible trains carrying passengers and of imagined trains depicted in art. The timeliness and order of well planned journeys mixed with missed connections. And the rumbling of the journey as the stories of love unfold. Perhaps David’s character captures Smith’s message the most astutely, “Everything is possible in love. In the heart of each of us there can be many rooms, and sometimes there are.” And if you listen closely, you can be part of these stories.
Let’s take one more train trip with Langston Hughes. The year is 1920 and Langston is just eighteen years old. He is traveling to Mexico to visit his father. When the train crosses the Mississippi River, Langston’s famous Poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” “comes rushing” into his head. “Suddenly, three words. Just three, but I know I have to write them down. How? Where? I snatched the envelope with my father’s letter in it and turn it over. Who cares where — just write! On the back side, with a little stubby pencil I always carry, I write the words: I’ve known Rivers.” Lucky for Langston he had his stubby pencil and found that envelope when the train ride sparked his imagination.
Robert Burleigh’s Langston’s Train Ride illustrated by Leonard Jenkins successfully “captures the moment when Langston Hughes came to believe in himself as a writer.” Burleigh wanted to tell this particular story, but also promote the promise of achieving dreams.
So, when you find yourself aboard a train, have a “stubby pencil”, a good snack, an open mind, perhaps lend a listening ear. You never know who you might meet or what you might discover in the “rooms of” your own heart and mind.
Quotations in this post are from primary sources listed and pictured.
