Friday, April 4, 2008

Folklore--The Jolly Postman

I just wanted to tell everyone about a great book that I found when digging through my childhood storybooks: The Jolly Postman or Other People's Letters by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. This was one of my favorite books as a child because it was so different than any other book I had read, yet it incorporated common fairytales into the story in a unique and exciting way. The book is about a postman delivering the mail to some memorable fairytale characters. Each page consists of text on the left hand side and what looks like a real letter on the right hand side (the page acts as the envelope and there's actually a letter inside!). For example, the first stop on the postman's route is to "Mr. and Mrs. Bear" and the second stop is to "The Occupant, Gingerbread Bungalow, The Woods." The book is complete with six actual letters for each of the characters and their families--I think this is what I liked most about the book. I also enjoyed how the characters were portrayed as modern-day fairytales almost--their stories differed from that of the original fairytale story. For example, when the postman pulls up to Cinderella's Palace there is a sign on the outside that says "SOLD." Another reason why I took to the book so much was because of the rhyming, interesting text. Also. I was a big lover of fairytales when I was a child (especially Cinderella) and I think it was interesting for me to see a different representation of her than I was used to seeing. If you're looking for an interesting book that kids will absolutely love, try this one out. The book has so many surprises inside, kids will fall in love with it!

2 comments:

Holly K said...

I remember reading this when I was young. I loved every bit of it. Fabulous book, fabulous find.

Juliann K. said...

I read this book when I was little and loved it. When I was student teaching in high school, I brought this book in to be donated to the classroom library. The kids went crazy over this book. They loved all of the pictures, and were making connections to all of the different fairy tale characters. The nice part about this book is that it is interactive. Some of the letters being sent to different characters are puzzles, while others are Christmas cards. This book is so much fun, and the children I worked with really loved it. The pictures and notes have all of these little details in them, even now when I look back at it, I still find new little things I've never seen before. This is a great book, and is a fun twist to the traditional Christmas books. It is one everyone should see.