Kelly loves reading, but as I realize, when I let her choose her own books, she has her own preferences. Last year, I read her One Fish, Two Fish so often I nearly had it memorized. This year she can’t get enough of the Froggy books, Amelia Bedelia, and Postman Pat. You’ve probably never heard of Postman Pat
because he doesn’t exist in the United States, not even on PBS or on BBC America. But we somehow ended up having several Postman Pat books in our possession, and Kelly just loves him. He’s the one and only postman in a Mayberry-like town. Pat takes his black-and-white cat, Jess, with him everywhere and has a variety of wacky, but never too outrageous, adventures with the likes of an ever-tinkering handyman named Ted Glen, and the stuff he finds in the never-empty attic of an old woman named Granny Dryden. I’m actually embarrassed that I know these characters, but I know them because Kelly loves them.
The real problem with Postman Pat is that all the characters speak in a very British way. I just stick with American pronounciation, but I don’t even know how to pronounce some of the words, like “fête.” I switch between “feet,” “fet”, and “fest,” and I bet they’re all wrong. And that British sticks in your head! Sometimes I find myself thinking “Isn’t that grand,” and I feel like I need to wave my fists in the air like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit. Oh, well, if I get back to Britain, I’ll either fit in or come across like someone who’s read way too much British children’s books.