by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 02, 2010

It was nine years after "Katy and the Big Snow," and 14 years after "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel." But in 1952 Virginia Lee Burton wrote a children's story that was also a piece of activism. "Maybelle the Cable Car" follows yet another machine as it makes its rounds through a city. But this time Burton dedicates the book to Mrs. Hans Klussman, who was leading the real-world fight to preserve San Francisco's cable cars - and to all the people of San Francisco who loved them.

"Maybelle had a bell on top
Ring two to go...and one to stop

The drawings are adorable, with simple cartoon-y sketches of the city's swooping hills and boxy skyscrapers. There's often several pictures to a page, and the tiny drawings make the little cable car seem even cuter. The city can seem like one giant hill, with a cheerful beach and the ocean waiting in the background. And even San Francisco's famous fog clouds are just curlicues shaded grey in the sky...

"Maybelle was a cable car
a San Francisco cable car
Cling clang...clingety clang
Up and down and around she went."

The old-fashioned book begins by following Maybelle through her day, as Burton shows an obvious love for cable cars. (On one two-page spread, Burton offers 12 different illustrations showing how the cable cars work!) Another illustration includes the names of all the San Francisco streets along their route. And one picture even shows the green municipal railway barn where the cable cars stop overnight.

In the barn the different cable cars share their memories about how things have changed since "the good old times" - reflecting the real pride San Franciscans have for their city's colorful history. The cars poignantly remember the old days when "nobody hurried and nobody worried," as Burton draws colorful scenes from the city's past. There's Victorian houses on a hillside, as tiny women stroll by in long dresses with parasols. And one drawing even shows the grey empty hills after "the terrible fire which destroyed the City overnight."

The book's jacket explains that Burton had been an art student in San Francisco, and "She never lost her affinity for the city of San Francisco and its effort to preserve and protect its cable cars." In a foreword she describes the first cable cars in San Francisco in 1873 - saying they were invented because Andrew S. Hallidie couldn't bear to see horses struggling to climb steep hills that were too wet, and slippery. In the margins of one drawing Burton lists eight different cable car companies that plied the hills before the big earthquake of 1906. But she tries to build sympathy for the cable cars by bringing one of them to life.

"No hill too steep...
no load to heavy...
Always cheerful...
and most polite...

She rang her gong
and sang her song
from early morn
till late at night."

Maybelle is a sweet vehicle, and decides she'd rather be a cable car than a modern bus spewing gasoline fumes. ("Of course she didn't say this out loud because she was much too polite...")
There's a painful plot twist when an arrogant bus tells Maybelle that she's too slow and old-fashioned - but by the end of the book the bus starts skidding when the roads is too damp. And the people in San Francisco prepare for an election where they'll ultimately vote to save their cable cars.

"It reminded Maybelle of 'the good old times'," the old-fashioned book concludes, "when everyone knew everyone else...and life was gay and friendly."

Learn more about this author, Moe Zilla.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.