The Jolly Postman is an innovative children's book written and illustrated by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, which took five years to create and was published in 1986. It was awarded the Children's Book Award and the Kurt Maschler Award

Kurt Maschler Award

The Kurt Maschler Award was established in 1982 by Kurt Maschler, and was awarded annually until 1999 to honour "a work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other."-History:...

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Plot summary

The Jolly Postman follows a postman, known only as The Postman or The Jolly Postman as he delivers letters to various characters. All the recipients of the letters are characters drawn from popular fairy tales or children's stories, including Goldilocks, the Gingerbread Man

The Gingerbread Man

The Gingerbread Man Thegingerbread Runner is the anthropomorphic protagonist in a fairy tale about a cookie's escape from various pursuers and his eventual demise between the jaws of a fox. The Gingerbread Boy makes his first print appearance in the May 1875 issue of St...

 and Cinderella

Cinderella

"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...

. Throughout the story, after each page of narration, there is a page shaped like an envelope

Envelope

An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter or card....

 which contains a letter which the postman has delivered. These letters are intended to be taken out when the postman delivers the letter and add to the story. This concept follows similar lines to pop-up book

Pop-up book

The term pop-up book is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner...

s in allowing the children, to whom the book is intended to be read, to be included in the reading of the book and interact with it.

Prizes

In 1986, The Jolly Postman was awarded the Kurt Maschler Award

Kurt Maschler Award

The Kurt Maschler Award was established in 1982 by Kurt Maschler, and was awarded annually until 1999 to honour "a work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other."-History:...

 and in 1987, it was awarded the Children's Book Award.

Sequels

Following the success of The Jolly Postman, Janet and Allan Ahlberg also wrote The Jolly Pocket Postman and The Jolly Christmas Postman, which were both based along similar lines. The latter was published in 1992 and was the last book that Janet and Allan wrote together, and she died in November 1994 at the age of 50 from cancer.