Traditional Tale

Traditional Tale: 
Title: The Jolly Christmas Postman
Author: Janet and Allan Ahlberg
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company,
Publication Date: 1991
ISBN: 0-316-127-15-9

    The Jolly Christmas Postman is a book that features the characters of many traditional fairy tales.  The Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, Humpty Dumpty, and the Gingerbread Boy all make appearances in this book.  The main character in the story is the Postman.  This book is from England, and it is very British.  The Jolly Christmas Postman rides his bike from house to house delivering mail for Christmas and gets a cup of tea at each stop.  The book is structured in such an original way, on one page there is a story of the Postman going on his rounds, and the accompanying pages is an envelope.  In each envelope there is a card or letter that the child can take out and read.  The detail in each page is amazing.  The envelope page is like a real letter with stamps, and an address and a postmark.  In the flap is an actual card. The first one is to Baby Bear from Goldilocks.  The artwork in the book is whimsical, beautiful, and detailed.  There is so much to look at in this book.  After the child is done looking at the card, they can put it back in the envelope.  There are many scenes of characters getting ready for Christmas, and the Postman traveling from house to house.  He passes the Cat and the Fiddle, the Dish and the Spoon, and Seven Dwarfs going up a hill.  Red Riding Hood lives in Diddle Dumpling, that is where her envelope is addressed.  Her envelope contains a board game from the Big Bad Wolf. A child can pull the board game out of the envelop and actually play thee game (it is like a Candy Land game.) The Postman goes back on his bike, and goes to a hospital where they are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  In Humpty Dumpty’s envelope is a puzzle of Humpty Dumpty a child can put together.  Humpty is in the hospital, and in comes the doctor, the nurse, and the lady with the alligator purse.  Next the Postman goes to the Gingerbread boy’s house.  Inside his envelope is a tiny book with even more little stories.  A book for the Gingerbread boy.  Next the Jolly Postman arrives at  the den of the Big Bad Wolf.  The Big Bad Wolf gets a card from Little Red Riding Hood.  A child can pull this out, and laugh at all the pictures Red Riding Hood has drawn, making fun of the Wolf.   The Postman is delighted to get out of the Wolf’s house.  Next stop is Santa’s house.  In this envelope is a Christmas cad with all the fairy tale characters giving cards to the Postman,  At the end of the story, there is too much snow on the ground, the Postman cannot ride home, so Santa gives him a lift his sleigh. 
This book introduces fairy tale characters to children in a new way that  is very funny and lighthearted.  Children love going into these envelopes and pulling out the extra, hidden cards and games.  This was one of my favorite Christmas books because of the surprises in each envelope.  5 out of 5 stars.