You've Got Snail Mail

I remember when I was a little girl, the mail lady drove up and down our suburban hill putting letters in the spacious silver mailboxes at the end of each driveway. If we wanted to mail something, we would put it in the box and raise the red flag that rested dutifully at its side. The mail lady was very sweet to all the kids and at Christmas we would leave her a little box of holiday cookies or a card with some cash in it. She would take my envelope with its carefully printed address to Santa Claus at the North Pole, usually with an S&H green stamp in the upper right hand corner, and earnestly promise to deliver it to him. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

We would get stacks of Christmas cards from all my mom and dad’s friends near and far, back at a time before social media could catch them up on everyone’s doings. I imagined that every letter in the mailbox was from a place I had never heard of and never been to, which was probably true, but those places were the nearest big city which was Pittsburgh, and not somewhere exotic like Hawaii or Europe or Australia. China was a place we thought we could reach by digging a hole in the back yard, and all the way through the planet. 

The idea of getting a letter was fantastical to me at that time. I didn’t even get mailed letters or cards from my grandparents because they lived close by and I saw them all the time. But when we moved far away from our suburban home to Misty Hill Farm, written in neat block letters on our new mailbox, I promised to write to my friend Cindy Wolf, who in addition to sharing the same first name and last initial as me, also shared my birthday. I even got stationery for Christmas that year and we were pretty conscientious about our writing until we weren’t anymore.

When my first children’s book, The Great Garden Party, was published last year, a lot of my friends and family asked me to sign their book for a special child. For those children who I didn't know or didn't live near me, I thought, why not send them a postcard instead, with my thanks and well wishes (and remind them to eat their veggies of course). That way, they would get something in the mail... an unusual occurrence for any child, in any time.

I set about designing and printing the postcard which is from an exotic place: Bloomers Island, located somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean and that no human has ever seen let along visited. The Bloomers even have their own mail system (the Snail Mailman) and their own stamps (worth 50 Golden Suns). I thought that would be much more exciting and the child could use it as a bookmark too! And then I thought, why not offer that to every child who buys a book? So that’s what I’m doing. If you buy one of the Bloomers’ books, you can email me at [email protected], (I will get that promptly), with your child’s name and address and I will send her or him a postcard from Bloomers Island. Remember though that since it is coming from the Snail Mailman on Bloomers Island it may take a little while!
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Remind your special child to enjoy their book, eat their veggies, and I look forward to hearing from them. The book, Bloomers Island, The Great Garden Party, can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores everywhere.

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