Table of Contents
ALL ABOUT MAIL
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Margaret Wise Brown’s Seven Little Postmen (Golden Books, 2002) is the cheerful rhyming story of how seven postmen collaborate to deliver a little boy’s letter after he seals it with red wax and drops it in the mailbox. Originally written in the 1940s, the book has great vintage illustrations. For ages 3-7. |
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By Gail Gibbons, The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves (HarperCollins, 1986) is a straightforward picture-book account of what happens to a letter after you drop it in the mailbox. For ages 4-8. |
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The National Postal Museum has information and online exhibits on the history of postal operations, stamps, and stamp collecting. Click on the Educators page for a collection of lesson plans, activities, and resources for kids. |
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In Sandra Horning’s The Giant Hug (Dragonfly Books, 2008), Owen – a lovable little piglet in overalls – decides to send his granny a hug through the mail. So he goes to the post office with his granny’s address, gives the postal clerk a GIANT hug, and asks him to pass it on. And so the hug goes from person to person across the country until it reaches granny herself – who sends back a kiss. For ages 4-8. |
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In Michael O. Tunnel’s Mailing May (Greenwillow Books, 2000), it’s 1914 and May wants to visit her Grandma Mary who lives “a million miles away through the rough old Idaho mountains,” but her Ma and Pa can’t afford a train ticket. The solution: to send her via U.S. mail (with 53 cents in stamps pasted to the back of her coat). Based on a true story. For ages 4-8. |
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Mona Kerby’s Owney, the Mail Pouch Pooch (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008) is the true story of a little dog who wandered into the Albany, NY, post office one cold rainy night in 1888 and made himself at home. Named Owney, the dog became famous as the mascot of the post office and later as a guard on trains transporting the mail. (There’s a period photo of Owney on board a train at the end of the book.) For ages 5-8. |
| From the National Postal Museum, see Owney, the Railway Mail Service Mascot for an e-book about Owney, a downloadable Owney song, photos, lesson plans, and more. Owney even has his own Facebook page. | |
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Ellen Levine’s Henry’s Freedom Box (Scholastic, 2007) is the true story of Henry Brown, born a slave, who manages to mail himself north to freedom. For ages 5-10. |
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Cheryl Harness’s They’re Off! The Story of the Pony Express (Simon & Schuster, 2002) is the attractively designed story of an exciting period in the delivery of the U.S. mail – that of the phenomenal Pony Express. Included are wonderful maps and diagrams, creative illustrations, and an appended list of all the Pony Express Riders. For ages 7-10. |
POETIC LETTERS
| Emily Dickinson’s poem Bee! I’m Expecting You is written in the form of a letter from Bee’s friend, Fly. | |
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By Emily Dickinson, The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems (New Directions/Christine Burgin, 2013) is a gorgeous facsimile collection of the 52 poems that Dickinson wrote on scraps of envelopes. |
PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES
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Turn your photos or drawings into postcards and postage stamps! |
| From Everything Preschool, Post Office Arts and Crafts has instructions for making your own stamp, picture postcard, and mail bag. | |
| From Makezine, see these instructions for making a great Family Connection Letter Writing Center. It hangs on the wall and is filled with pockets for all the essentials: paper, envelopes, stamps, writing and drawing utensils, decorations, and even a pack of clever little cards with letter-writing ideas. | |
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Author Kurt Vonnegut, while teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, wrote his class assignments in the form of letters, as a means of communicating personally with each of his students. Read a sample at Kurt Vonnegut’s Rules for Writing Fiction. (Tackle the assignment!) |