Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton

This book features a tale of life at its inception through an illustrated stage play. Virginia Lee Burton published her final book, Life Story, in 1962. Other well-known works by Burton include Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939), Calico, The Wonder Horse (1941), Katy and the Big Snow (1943), and Maybelle, the Cable Car (1952). Burton received the Caldecott Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for The Little House (1942). The first published piece that she wrote and illustrated was Choo Choo: Story of a Little Engine Who Ran Away (1937). Her first published illustration work was for Sad-Faced Boy (1937) by Arna Bontemps, commissioned by Houghton Mifflin Company. The subject of her first book was a piece of dust titled Jonnifer Lint it was rejected by thirteen publishers. She would test out the stories and illustrations on her own children and their friends to decide where to make adjustments depending on their reaction. On August 30, 1936, they had their second son, Michael Burton Demetrios.īurton started writing children’s books as a way to entertain her sons. The family settled in Folly Cove, Gloucester, Massachusetts. They had their first son named Aristides Burton Demetrios on February 17, 1932. She enrolled in a drawing class at the Boston Museum School in 1930 and married her professor, George Demetrios, less than a year later, on March 28, 1931.

In Boston, Virginia Lee Burton landed a position as a “sketcher” for the Boston Transcript, where she completed sketches of dancers and actors to accompany articles written by the drama and music critic. Burton’s father broke his leg, and she decided to move back to Massachusetts to take care of him. She hoped to become a dancer and had just signed a contract to be in her sister’s travelling dance troupe when, in 1928, her ballet career ended. Following high school, Burton studied dance in San Francisco. Her parents, Alfred Burton, an engineer, and Dalkeith Yates, a poet and artist, moved the family to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California in 1920. Virginia Lee Burton (1909-1968) was born in Newton Centre, Massachusetts on August 20, 1909. Home > Artists > Virginia Lee Burton Virginia Lee Burton Born: Aug| Died: OctoBiography

Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton