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Mule Train Mail

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by Craig Brown
Charlesbridge, 2009. Unpaged. Juvenile Non-Fiction (J 383.143
BRO)
Anthony the Postman is the only mail carrier in the United States to deliver mail on mules. Each day he loads up his animals to take mail to Supai, the Havasupai Indian community in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Anthony's story is charmingly told and nicely illustrated in Craig Brown's treatment of this unusual postal service. The dangers of the trail (especially in wet or wintry weather) are shown as the mules pass the skeleton of a mule that fell from the trail, but children will be interested to know that the delivery of mail down the canyon has never been canceled for any reason. The coloration of the canyon in Brown's book is not as varied as one remembers it--mostly browns and yellows--and the omission of the famous blue-green falls of the Supai trail is surprising, but on the whole children should be charmed by this unusual story of mail delivery in the desert Southwest.
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