A Day at the Animal Post Office product reviews

As a family who do still send things by snail mail, we all found this book very enjoyable! It certainly helped to educate Miss 4 on what happens to the mail once she posts it into the box. It is all part of the inquisitive mind of a 4 year old, and how just saying something just happens like that is not good enough anymore! This book educates as well as entertains, and kept us all concentrated on the story until the end when we find out what happens.

The story was long, and was definitely a one story only book at bedtime, but the story flowed well and didn't jump around trying to tie different story lines into it. The pictures, which suited the story excellently, played well with the words and helped Miss 4 to pick our certain words to say herself with the help of the images.

Although educational, it was also fun with how the story depicts animals doing jobs that humans do in the real world. And seeing how different animals would do the same job but differently, as what we do in our real world. Showing how the magical posting box isn't the end of the journey for a letter is an excellent way of teaching Miss 4 how her letters she writes to her grandparents actually gets to them (although they certainly don't have an igloo sorting office!)

Both of my kids found this book really good value. I sat down and read it to my four year old recently. She is always keen to learn about new things, and in particular new careers. She also likes animals a lot. This book offered her a chance to see animals being funny and doing "human" things; while learning about what a post office is like. She was interested in the letter sorting and riding a bicycle too.

Her favourite thing was all the mischief that Jack the bear gets up to. She also liked finding out what happens to a letter when you post it. She wondered if she could send her own letter and whether the same things would happen to hers. She was talking about writing to her Nana and that was really neat for me. I use to have a lot of pen pals as a kid, so I have a romantic view of the postal service.

When I read this book to Miss 9, I found that she enjoyed it just as much. She got a bit more out of it as she was trying to forward guess how the mail would get to Polly. She also found Jack very funny. We both had a laugh over the little things too, like the taste of envelopes and the tea breaks. Those were the things that were a bit too subtle for Miss 4.

The illustrations were really detailed and fun. The story is very wordy. It's not a five minute read, because it is quite thorough. However, it is entertaining and I didn't mind reading it again a few times. It inspired both of my kids to write to their Nana, and they can't wait to go and buy stamps and see their letters go into the post-box.