Maybelle the Cable Car

The story follows Maybelle, a cable car who rings her bell along her route. The publisher's description, as repeated by booksellers, says the book recounts actual events from San Francisco's effort to keep its cable cars, and the city transit agency's own history page names this book as telling the story of the citizens' fight, when voters approved a measure requiring the system to be maintained and operated. For a family planning a visit to the cable car lines, it gives a child a character and a reason to care about the cars before boarding. This edition restores Burton's original artwork, taken from the San Francisco Public Library's archives.

It is a read-aloud for home, before or after a trip to San Francisco. Read it in advance so that a child already knows the cars and their bells before boarding, or read it afterwards to connect the ride to the history. It is a story, so pair it with a short, accurate explanation from the transit agency or the Cable Car Museum if an older child wants the real dates and names. At 48 pages with a reading age of 4 to 7, it fits a single bedtime or a quiet moment in a hotel room, and it can be reread on the return trip. The pictures carry much of the story, so a child can follow along while an adult reads the text aloud, and it works equally well for a child who is only beginning to read independently.

Parents and grandparents of children aged about 4 to 7 who are visiting San Francisco, or who simply like trains and city transit, and want a story that connects the cable cars to the people who kept them running.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by the same author is the better choice for a child who likes machines more than a city setting. For an older reader or an adult, the transit agency's own article on Friedel Klussmann and the fight to save the cable cars gives the factual account that this picture book only retells as a story.