Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Today was the last day of the Tuckahoe Steam & Gas Association annual show. As soon as I got my hands on Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, I knew I wanted to "row" that book to coincide with the Tuckahoe event. This has been a really rough week so by the time the weekend arrived, I wasn't sure we'd actually make it to the show, but for once, procrastination paid off. We lucked out with a nice, low-humidity summer day, and Chris had enough of a break in his grueling work schedule that he was able to join us for a few hours, so it was an interesting and fun family time.

But, before we get to the Big Finish (tm), the first part of the week:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is a story about a steam shovel operator and his shovel, Mary Ann. Mike and Mary Ann were involved in some of the most important projects of the 1900s, from digging canals to putting down air fields to digging out cellars for the sky scrapers...you know, all those things that ushered society out of the age of steam and into the age of diesel, gasoline and electricity. All the labor Mike and Mary Ann put into their work...well, that effort put them (and the other steam equipment) out of a job.

While other steam shovels met an unfortunate end at the bottom of a dump, Mike continued to take care of Mary Ann and he continued to look for work to give him and his steam shovel purpose. When he spotted an opportunity in the tiny town of Popperville, he left the cities behind and headed out to the country. Things didn't quite go as planned, but in the end with the bright ideas of a little boy, Mike found a different, but equally satisfying, place in the world for himself and Mary Ann.

So the premise of Five in a Row is simple. You and your child read a book five times in a row (five days) and from that reading, you pursue discussions, topics of interest, interesting related science experiments and so forth.

In any event, Nicholas isn't quite ready for many of the discussions surrounding Mike Mulligan. In another year or two we'll go back and revisit nuances like the irony/tragedy of Mike's situation, replaced by the very technology he helped bring into the world; some more in-depth history; and deeper discussions about literary devices like elements of a story and personification.

He is proving himself very astute, though. The first time he stopped me was when we were reading about the steam shovels being put out to pasture (well, put out to rust). He asked about some other construction equipment (diesel, electric and gas) pictured on a different page, mostly questions about whether they were bad guys and whether the defunct steam shovels had died (death is a theme right now).

Later on, when Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann (literally) dug themselves into a hole, Nicholas stopped me to ask how they were going to get out of the hole. Of course that question came up in the story text on the next page but I found it really remarkable that he picked up on that problem purely from the pictures. One thing I love about Five in a Row is there's a focus on pausing to look at what the art says as well as reading what the text says.

And speaking of the art! We saw canals being dug, mountains being cut through, roads being leveled--all kinds of stuff. Nicholas and I looked at an image of North and South America and I showed him the route ships had to take prior to the building of a canal and we compared that route to the shorter journey allowed by the Panama Canal. We also counted the trees on the mountains (Nicholas starts to trip up at 13 and jumps to 16, 19.... counting to 30 is one of my primary math goals for the coming year) and we circled groups of four trees. We set up a little "dig" in our living room and pretended we were driving a steam shovel (a cardboard box) that ran out of steam and had to be refilled with coal. We also drew some items we found in the hole.

We talked about stewardship. According to him, we should take care of our cars, our toys, our dog and our bodies (he's not wrong!) and we talked about why Mary Ann and Mike were okay with being stuck in the hole they'd dug. We even studied parts of a steam shovel, courtesy of a diagram in the beginning of the book.

I had wanted to put together a pinwheel and use steam to spin it but things being what they are we didn't get to do some of my pre-planned activities. I think that's okay. He's still little and I don't mind winging it.

On the last day of our steam adventure, we packed up the car and headed to Tuckahoe, where we saw...

Yep, you guessed it.

A steam shovel.

He wanted to touch the teeth. :)

I've put Mike Mulligan on my calendar for next summer. I can't wait to see a comparison photo of how much he's grown between the July 2016 steam shovel photo opp and the summer 2017 snapshot.

Next up in our "rowing" adventure: we're heading to the beach with Jenny's Surprise Summer by Eugenie.