I miss getting mail. Real mail. The kind with an envelope and a stamp and a postmark.
In the old days, getting mail was sometimes the highlight of my day. I still receive a few birthday cards through the mail, but sending and receiving letters through the postal service now seems like a quaint custom of the past. Except in books. People in books still send and receive mail.
Sometimes the plot of a book hinges on a single letter that changes a character’s life forever. Sometimes books are composed entirely of letters or a combination of letters, diaries, maps, newspaper clippings, and other documents. Books written in this way are called epistolary novels. No, an epistolary is not a product for removing unwanted hair. That’s a depilatory!
An epistle is something written to be sent to another person or group of people, and an epistolary novel tells its story through a collection of epistles. Epistolary novels are usually fun to read, perhaps because we all have an Inner Snoop who likes to read other people’s mail — or maybe it’s because we miss getting letters in the mail ourselves and want to get vicarious pleasure by reading other people’s mail.
In this post I’ll tell you about four of my favorite epistolary books for children. All of these stories take place before social media made letters obsolete.
The Gardener
By Sarah Stewart
The Gardener is a picture book about a little girl named Lydia Grace Finch. The story takes place during the hard times of the Great Depression. Lydia’s father loses his job, and no one has money to pay her mother to make dresses anymore. Her parents decide to send Lydia Grace to live with her Uncle Jim until their financial situation improves. The story of her life in the city is told through the letters that she writes to her mother, her papa, and her grandma.
Many children and a lot of adults would have wilted if they found themselves in Lydia’s situation. First she’s sent far away from her home and her family. Then she discovers that she’s going to be living with a cantankerous old geezer who never smiles. However, Lydia is a resourceful, optimistic child who is not prone to wilting. She is already an enthusiastic gardener, thanks to her beloved grandmother, and she sets out to find ways to grow a garden in the city. She also sets out to make her Uncle Jim smile.
Before long, Lydia has plants growing in cracked teacups, discarded cake pans, and anything else that will hold a little dirt. The neighbors notice what she’s doing and begin to bring her containers that she can use as planters. Some even bring plants from their own gardens to share with her.
Since The Gardener is a picture book, Lydia’s letters to her family tell only part of the story. Lydia is far too modest to brag about all that she’s accomplished in her letters, but David Small, the book’s illustrator, was free to show in exuberant detail how Lydia gradually transforms Uncle Jim’s home — and Uncle Jim himself — with her sunny disposition and her gardening skills.
The Gardener is officially recommended for children ages five through eight, but I recommend it to readers of all ages.
You can learn more about Sarah Stewart at ourwhitehouse.org/sarah-stewart/. You can learn more about David Small at davidsmallbooks.com/.
Dear Mr. Henshaw
By Beverly Cleary
Leigh Botts’ parents are divorced, and as the story begins, he and his mother have moved to a new town. He’s had to start over at a new school, and he hasn’t made any friends yet. His father is a long-distance trucker who doesn’t always keep the promises he makes to Leigh about when he’ll call or visit. He doesn’t even have the companionship of his dog, Bandit, who is keeping his dad company on the road.
When Leigh is assigned a letter-writing project, he decides to write his favorite author, Mr. Henshaw, to whom he has written several times in the past. Leigh sends Mr. Henshaw a long list of questions. He is very annoyed when Mr. Henshaw doesn’t respond in time for Leigh to finish his report, but he does the best he can with information on the book jacket. When Mr. Henshaw does finally respond, he sends a long list of questions for Leigh to answer. Leigh’s mother insists that Leigh has to answer them.
After Leigh sends him the answers to his questions, Mr. Henshaw suggests that Leigh begin to keep a diary. He gives it a try, but writing to a blank piece of paper feels weird, so he begins each entry with “Dear Mr. Henshaw.” In his letters to Mr. Henshaw, which are never sent, Leigh begins to pour out his feelings about his father, his parents’ divorce, and being the new kid at school. Eventually, he doesn’t have to pretend that he’s writing to Mr. Henshaw. He discovers that he likes writing, and the entries in his diary show how much he’s matured since he first wrote to Mr. Henshaw.
You can learn more about Beverly Cleary at beverlycleary.com/.
The Sorta Sisters
By Adrian Fogelin
The Sorta Sisters is the story of two girls who become what used to be called “pen pals.” Having a pen pal was a quaint custom practiced in the days before Facebook and Twitter and Instagram made it possible to tell millions of strangers your deepest, darkest secrets — or simply what you had for breakfast.
A pen pal was someone with whom you communicated through letters — letters written by hand on paper and sent through the postal service. It was usually a person you’d never met in person, and it might even be a person living in a different country. When I was growing up in North Carolina, I was assigned a pen pal in North Dakota by my seventh-grade teacher as part of a class project.
In The Sorta Sisters, Anna Casey and Mica Delano become pen pals at the suggestion of a mutual acquaintance who thinks they have a lot in common. Anna is a foster child living in Tallahassee, Florida, with a biology teacher she hopes will soon adopt her. Mica lives on a sailboat in the Florida Keys with her father, a marine biologist who is frequently away from home. The girls share a passion for nature as well as a longing for a more stable home life.
Anna and Mica begin exchanging letters in which they gradually reveal more and more of their personalities. With their letters, they each include carefully chosen gifts from their local habitats — a piece of fossilized coral, a resurrection fern, a janthina shell. These are truly gifts from the heart that help build a strong friendship between the two girls. Each of them experiences a crisis that shows them just how important friendship can be.
You can learn more about slowdancejournal.wordpress.com/about-adrian-fogelin/.
Love, Aubrey
By Suzanne LaFleur
Sometimes the most important messages we write are the ones we know we’ll never send. That is the case in Love, Aubrey.
Love, Aubrey begins with Aubrey’s mother leaving the house in the early morning hours and never coming back. Aubrey doesn’t tell anyone that her mother has abandoned her. She tells herself that it’s fun to live on crackers and cheese and watch all the television she wants. Her grandmother eventually discovers what has happened and takes Aubrey to live with her in another state. Her grandmother also tries to find out where Aubrey’s mother is.
As Aubrey’s story progresses, the details of her situation are gradually revealed. Her family was involved in a horrendous auto accident, and her father and younger sister were killed. Her mother blames herself for the accident, and she is so psychologically traumatized that it’s as if Aubrey has lost her mother as well as her father and sister. As someone who has experienced the death of a parent as a child, I can tell you that Suzanne LaFleur does an amazing job of describing Aubrey’s reactions to the losses in her life.
Aubrey receives emotional support from her patient and compassionate grandmother and from a new friend she makes in school. She also turns to letter writing as a way to make sense of what has happened. At first Aubrey writes to her sister’s imaginary friend, which somehow seems easier than writing to a real person. Next, she writes to her sister and her father, who she knows will never receive the letters. With each letter she writes, a little more healing takes place.
You can learn more about at Suzanne LaFleur at suzannelafleur.com/.
Writing this post has intensified my belief that if we all took the time to write long letters — even if they’ll never be mailed, even if they’re written with a keyboard and not a pen — the world would be a better place.