The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves – Learn About Letter Delivery and Transportation for Kids

by Gail Gibbons

Learn where our mail goes and how it gets there in this classic nonfiction picture book by Washington Post/Children’s Book Guild Award winner Gail Gibbons. Do you ever mail a letter and wonder what happens to it after you drop it in the box? Read all about the post office and learn how letters are weighed, sorted, transported, culled, canceled, coded, binned, boxed, and sorted once again. Find out how people and machines work together to deliver the letters you send.

Genres: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Childrens, History

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1982

About the author

From gailgibbons.com: I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1944. Even as a little child, I was always busy putting books together. Sometimes I would bind them with yarn to hold the pages together. I've always loved drawing and painting. I was also a very curious child. My parents tell me that I was always asking lots and lots of questions.

Later, I went on to the University of Illinois, where I studied graphic design. Then I moved to New York City, where I got a job doing artwork for television shows. Eventually I was asked to do the artwork for a children's show. While doing that show, some of the children asked me if I had ever thought of doing children's books. My mind immediately recalled how much I enjoyed doing that type of thing when I was a child. So I put an idea for a book together and right away a publisher bought it. That book was called Willy and His Wheel Wagon. Since then, over 170 books that I have written and illustrated have been published. The type of books I write are non-fiction books. This is because I love researching so much. I get to ask lots of questions, just like when I was a kid. I also get to travel and meet lots of interesting people. While doing research for my book Nature's Green Umbrella: Tropical Rain Forests, I traveled to two islands where there are tropical rain forests, Saba and Dominica. I also had a great time writing and illustrating the book. I get a lot of pleasure from doing the type of work I do.

Reviews

[Shoshanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gail Gibbons has a great series of books that shows how things work, using simple, fun, cartoon-like illustrations that while in some ways plain, also have a lot of detail. I first saw a book of hers, Department Store, at the Friends of the library book sale. It is definitely worth checking out. That book takes you through the day of a department store, in all the departments and with great detail. My favorite pages are ones which attempt to show the entire store on one full page.

The Post Office Book is another great one of her books. Gibbons illustrates the whole process of how the mail works, over time, and from sender to receiver. It’s so interesting to see the details of how these institutions work. Even more interesting is that since this book was written in 1982, things have changed, with more computers and automation now. Therefore what you get is a historic snapshot of how mail was delivered decades ago, with all the people involved in every step. This adds another interesting use. Parents today can read this book to their child to show how things worked when they were children themselves. This is the kind of book I’d've probably read as a kid, over and over again, if I’d've known about it then. At the end, there are fun mail facts too. I’m sure the next time you go to your post office, you’ll be thinking about everything going on behind the scenes. That’s one of my favorite parts of books like these. They get you thinking about things you haven’t before.

Other incredible books of hers that explain everyday systems include:
Deadline! : from News to Newspaper,
New road!,
Trains,
Lights! Camera! Action! : How a Movie is Made,
Fire! Fire!,
Fill it up! : all about Service Stations,
And of course, my favorite one is Check it out! : The Book about Libraries!

[Nancy Roach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who does not love getting mail? The Post Office Book helps us learn more about how the mail moves throughout the process. Sending people messages and packages has been going on since the early times. This book goes through the step by step process of how we send mail either through the post office or place in a mailbox around town. Then it goes through the mail carriers onto lots of different ways that they sort the mail. The mail is loaded on different types of transportation like trucks or planes. Then they sort it again so that the right person receives the mail. WOW! I had not realized how big this process is and had wondered what the process was because I really enjoy sending mail to others. This would be a good book to inform to people about the process of how mail moves and anyone could benefit from this picture book.

[Bailey Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explains how the United States postal service works. It has pictures illustrating each step of the postal service, which can be helpful for children who are just beginning to learn about mail and how it works. This could be a great tool in a lower level classroom if you are doing a unit on how to write a letter. You could use this book to show students how to address and writ a letter, and then explain to them what happens after they send it.

[Taylor Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genre: Informational Nonfiction
Grade: k-1

Shows the process of how mail is sent to the post office, sorted, and sent to you. The simple text and illustrations make it easy for children to understand the process. This could be a great book for incorporating it into a lesson about writing letters. You could have students write a letter to someone special and sent it to them in the mail.

[Courtney Adcock]

This book is about how the mailing system works. It shows you all of the stops that it will make and how they sort it to be able to get to you.

This was a cute informational book. I would use it to show them how the mailing system works.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative for children to learn how the post office and mail carriers do their job.
Not quite a story time book, but a great resource!

[Library Lady Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably needs an update.

[Addie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nonfiction kids book about the post office. 12 month old not into it.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an informative text that provides step by step information of how mail gets from one place to another. It talks about early times of how people always sent messages and packages, but now how we have a more modern way of sending them by in the mail. This book tells you the start by having to pay for something to be mailed, the process of being hand sorted and put into different bins, and finally being delivered to the person.

I enjoyed this book, but it is an older book so the graphics aren't that fancy. My brother works in the post office so I knew most of this information already, but it was nice to read this book and see the pictures that corresponds with the text. I recommend this book for anyone who is curious about how their letters get to where they are sending them.

You could use this book as a mentor text when teaching students about the proper way to mail something. For example, you could read this book to students around Veterans Day when you have students write letters to Veterans to thank them. Then when you mail the letters, the students will know the process of how their letters get to the Veterans.

Books that you can pair with this book are: Tornados, From Seed To Plant, & Hurricanes.

[Emily Petering · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a short, informative story about everything that occurs when you send a letter. The author used simple, but accurate words that most students would be able to understand without much difficulty. This book really does a great job informing its readers about everything that is necessary to get a letter where it needs to go. I think many a lot of kids would find this incredibly fascinating because sending letters is something that they can do, now they know how it really works. The illustrations were simple and to the point. They really showed the actions that are involved well.

I would use this book in a classroom with certain projects. It would be great to have the students write letters to their peers, address them, and then act out what needed to happen to get the letter to their peers.

[Alex Wingrove · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is all about how the mailing system works so that people like you and I can get our mail. It talks about the entire process, from start to finish. First it starts by someone putting their letter in the mail, then how it goes through the post office, gets sorted into different bins based on zip code, and how it gets transferred to the different zip codes either by truck or plane.
I liked this book because I've never really known how the mailing process works, and I've always wondered how they sort and deliver mail to different places.
I think this could be used in the classroom to educate kids on different forms of communication. Nowadays it seems like the only way people talk to each other is through social media or other forms of technology, but snail mail has been around for a very long time.

[Ashley Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explains the whole process of what happens once you seal the envelope and put it in th mailbox. It begins with getting picked up, and then goes through sorting and categorizing, and traveling, and ends with being dropped off to where the ship to address is.

This book clearly presented the process of mailing something somewhere, and it was really interesting to learn about this procedure that has such a huge impact on literally everyone.

I think this book would be great in a classroom, especially if the classroom is doing pen pals or anything involving mailing something. I would use this book to give a glimpse of this little world to kids who may never step a foot beyond the line in the post office.

[Courtney Bemiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many things in life that happen "behind the scenes", most of the time without our knowledge. Gail Gibbons writes about one of these particular instances: the journey of mail. Most of us only ever experience the beginning or the end of the journey of an envelope or a package. But in her book, "The Post Office Book: Mail and How It Moves", Gibbons explains the process of mail. She describes how it travels from the sender's mailbox, to the post office, and then to the mailbox of the recipient. I think Gibbons does an excellent job explaining the mailing process in a way that young readers can understand. She uses kid-friendly vocabulary and images that help further explain the text.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another non-fiction picture book that I think my son will like since he seems to point out mail trucks and mail carriers a lot.

After reading it to him, I think it's a little beyond him at this point. I really liked the illustrations and that it showed the variety of ways that mail travels and the different kinds of mailboxes based on the types of homes. Great book on the subject, just a little advanced for a 3 1/2 yr old.

[Tori Davenport]

This is a great book for younger students, pre-k and kindergarteners would like the easy words and the flow. This would be great to teach students all about how things are mailed. it would be super cute to have them write letters to people and have them send them in the mail so they can see how it works. The pictures in this story are super cute as they are all red, white, and blue. I feel like it does a great job informing students about mail service.

[Kathy Ellen Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is adorable!
I loved the illustrations;
it's like a graphic novel in some places.

It's fun to follow a letter through the system
and see all the different places that mail gets delivered to.
And how!

Would be great for a kid who loves mail,
or one who needs to do a report on the post office.

[Naomi]

This book tells all about the post office and how letters are weighed, sorted, transported, culled, canceled, coded, binned, boxed, and sorted once again. You find out how people and machines work together to deliver the letters you send.

[Room 123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like getting mail? The Post Office Book is a good book because it tells you how mail gets to different parts of the world. And sometimes mail doesn't go around the world. It comes here! Learn about it in this book!

By Callum

[The Brothers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very simple and somewhat dated (published 1982) of how our postal system works.

Illustrations are as simple and dated as the narrative. Even so, both Asher (4 years) and Dex (2 years) really enjoyed it.

[Cws]

JEAR3-Gib

[Sara Taylor-hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primary appropriate

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

My girls (almost 5 and 7 yo) loved this. Very detailed explanation of how mail moves through the postal system in the US. I wonder how things have changed since the book was written.