By Janet and Allen Ahlberg
This was one of my favorite books when I was a child. The Jolly Postman centers around the average day for the postman who delivers main in a neighborhood "in a land far far away." The neighbors are all characters from a famous fairy tale or fable. This book was the first portrayal of these characters "living in harmony." For example, the Three Bears live next-door to the Wicked Witch (from the gingerbread-man fable). Baby bear invites Goldilocks to his birthday party and one of the three little pigs sits at a table with the Big Bad Wolf. The Shrek movies are built upon this idea of combing the eclectic assortment of fairy tale characters into one base plot. In this book, animosity and vengeance do not exist as one would suspect if certain characters were around each other.
The best part of this book is the style of conveying the plot which is centered around one theme- Baby Bear's birthday party. The postman delivers letters to different characters, who all invite him in for tea and a visit. Each character shares his or her letter with the postman, thus allowing the reader to view the letter. Each letter is customized for its recipient. For example, the Wicked Witch receives a supply brochure specifically for witches (advertisements include "deadly" lampshades, a "witching hour glass," halloween boots, and frog powder) while Cinderella receives a letter and book from a publishing company who wants to publish her story on behalf of her recent wedding to the prince.
The envelopes in which each letter is placed contains a full page of the book. One side is the addressed envelop while the other side is the opening with the letter. The envelopes themselves contain theme-based text reflecting details of the fairy tale from which the character is from. The stamps and front all differ and coincide with the theme as well.
The illustrations are all located above the text and do not contain boarders. This white background and illustration "dissolving"(into the white background) cause the reader to feel like they are in a "dream-like" state or "far-away" land. Smaller images of the characters or items relating to the characters are located in some corners of the page "blocking -in" the text. The image of Baby Bear's birthday party is the only illustration containing boarders. This technique is used to make the birthday scene look more like a picture of window for the reader to "look in" rather than being a part of the party.
This book was so well loved and popular that the author's created more Jolly Postman books (none of them are as good as the original). Here is an image of the Holiday-themed Postman book:
And here you can find a genre study based on the books:
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