“The Parcel Post Kid”Background Knowledge & Vocabulary

parcel post • postmaster • flabbergasted trestle

forbidden • classified • nonfiction

Story Intro

duction

Parcel Post

• A parcel is a package wrapped

for mailing. Post means to mail.

• Today, wrapping packages in paper is discouraged.

• In fact, cord, string, twine, masking or cellophane tape is forbidden. Why?

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Mailing Options

• Parcel Post is a mailing service. Packages can be classified as….– Parcel Post: most affordable option, 2-9 days (<70 lbs)

– First Class: 1-3 days (letters or light packages only)

– Priority Mail: 2-3 days

– Express Mail: 1-2 days (includes tracking & money back guarantee)

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Question…• Can a Child be Sent Parcel Post?

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Answer…• After parcel post service was

introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the classification of children as packages after hearing of those examples.

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Henry Box Brown

• Henry Box Brown was born a slave in Virginia, He married a local slave but in 1849 his wife and children were sold to a plantation owner in North Carolina.

• Soon afterwards Brown decided to escape and with the help of a sympathetic businessman, he arranged to be sent in a box 3 ft long & 2 ft wide to James McKim, a member of the Underground Railroad, in Pennsylvania.

• Brown survived the journey, flabbergasted his recipients and became a well-known speaker for the Anti-Slavery Society, he wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1851).

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Question?

• Can a live animal be sent through the mail?

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Answer…

• Yes. The Postal Service accepts live animals that do not require delivery within a 72-hour period, such as earthworms, lizards, snails, crickets, grasshoppers, and bees.

• Live animals that require air transportation, such as day-old poultry, adult poultry and queen honeybees are allowed with restrictions (based on space available and only at certain airports)

The Parcel Post Kidby Michael O. Tunnell

Nonfiction - A true story

Trestle - wooden bridge supports

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May when she was five years old, about the age when she was mailed.

The trestle of the Camas Prairie Railroad at about the time May would have ridden in the mail car as a package.

May’s grandmother’s house as it looked several years after May was

mailed to her.