Book "Bulldozer"

The book "Bulldozer" by Stephen W. Meader is a novel that Ben Hanscom borrows from the Derry Public Library on the last day of school in June 1958, and which he later re-encounters as an adult in 1985, when the library's checkout system still retains his childhood signature. The book functions as a tangible link between Ben's past and present, its physical condition—bearing the mark of Henry Bowers's boot and the library's CANCEL stamp—mirroring the violent and forgotten history that the Losers' Club must confront.

Selection and Initial Reading

On the afternoon school let out for summer vacation in June 1958, Ben Hanscom walked to the Derry Public Library, his usual destination when he had free time. He chose three books from the Children's Library: "Bulldozer," "The Black Stallion," and "Hot Rod" by Henry Gregor Felsen. Mrs. Starrett, the head children's librarian, remarked that "Hot Rod" was "extremely bloody" and that she urged it on teenagers to give them something to think about. Ben took his books to a table away from Pooh's Corner, where story hour was in progress, and began reading "Hot Rod." He found it "not too shabby" and learned that there were no speed limits in Iowa, where the book was set. He read three chapters before his attention was caught by a new display promoting letter-writing, which inspired him to buy a postcard and compose a haiku for Beverly Marsh.

The Book as Evidence of Violence

After finishing the haiku and mailing the postcard, Ben left the library and walked up Kansas Street, absorbed in a fantasy about Beverly. He was ambushed by Henry Bowers, Belch Huggins, and Victor Criss. During the assault, Henry knocked Ben's library books out of his hands and stepped on "Bulldozer," dealing it into the gutter with a sideswipe of his black engineer boot. Ben was then forced backward over the railing and fell into the Barrens, leaving the books behind. The boot print on the cover became a permanent scar on the object, linking it to the violence that defined that summer.

The Adult Re-encounter

Twenty-seven years later, on May 30, 1985, Ben returned to the Derry Public Library after the reunion lunch at Jade of the Orient. Following Mike Hanlon's suggestion that each of them revisit a place from their childhood, Ben walked to the library and, on impulse, asked for a new library card. While Carole Danner processed the request, Ben wandered into the Children's Library and, in a moment of disorientation, grabbed a book at random from the shelf. When he left the building, he looked down and saw that the book was "Bulldozer"—one of the three he had borrowed on that fateful day in 1958. The cover still bore the track of Henry Bowers's engineer boot. Inside, the checkout card showed his own childish signature in heavy pencil-strokes on the last line, and the book was stamped repeatedly with the word "CANCEL" in smeary red ink that looked like blood. The library had gone over to a microfilm checkout system, but the old card remained in the pocket. Ben murmured, "Oh dear God, dear God," overwhelmed by the convergence of past and present.

The Book as a Symbol of the Cycle

The reappearance of "Bulldozer" in Ben's hands at the exact moment when the Losers' Club was reassembling to confront It again underscores the novel's role as a material witness to the cyclical nature of Derry's horror. The book, damaged by Henry Bowers and then canceled by the library, parallels the way the town's violent history is both preserved and suppressed—the physical evidence remains, but the meaning is stamped out. Ben's childhood signature on the card, alongside the CANCEL stamp, suggests that the past is never truly erased, only overlaid, and that the objects of childhood retain a power to reconnect the adult to the child he was, and to the promises he made.