The Little Engine That Could was published in 1930 under the name Watty Piper, a pen name of Arnold Munk. Its little engine repeats: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” The story was meant “to teach children the value of optimism and hard work.”
Earlier versions existed, including one in the New-York Tribune in 1906. In 2007 the National Education Association listed the book among its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children.” Its publisher, Francesco Sedita, called the engine “the poster engine of the can-do attitude.”