Postmark Paris: A Story in Stamps

I'm a relatively new stamp collector, and came across a reference to this book in a stamp magazine...as a book that would intrigue a youngster. Trust me, it is beautifully published and quite charming, even for an adult! The color reproductions of each stamp are gorgeous! I went one step further, and decided to acquire each of the stamps that are depicted in the book. What fun! I have almost completed my search, but as most stamp collectors will tell you, a lot of the fun IS the search! I highly recommend this as a gift book for anyone young or young-at-heart to introduce them to the magic of stamps!

Ten-year-old Leslie tells her story of living in Paris for a year, illustrating this appealing odyssey with postage stamps. Her mother, father and 'baby' brother Michael and all of Paris play important roles. Her father introduces her to collecting stamps & they visit the famous stamp market, and become acquainted with several stamp sellers - - their carefully gloved hands and often gruff manners. For Leslie it is a year of new sights & friendships, of a newly acquired language, and stamps chosen for the album that will bulge with special memories when she returns to the States. Young readers will share the excitement of this adventure, and maybe even feel the lure of stamp collecting. What a wealth of French artists are included! Leslie goes to the beach where her school friends swim topless & there is an appropriate painting by Ingres of a shy nude figure - - mirroring how she felt. Other art is shown in a stamp from "Ceskolovensko" with a handsome magician doing an improbable card trick, a stamp from Monaco with "La Lectrice" . . .even Romanian stamps of radishes & cucumbers! I hope students (including home-schooled) are inspired to adapt their experiences in stories about their own country, state, or particular area of interest: Art, food, bridges, etc.? McHAIKU has 'graduated' from her stamp-collecting days but enjoyed Leslie's travelogue tremendously, with a good topping of nostalgia. Thank you, Leslie Jonath!

Like most Chronicle books, Postmark Paris is an artistic adventure through the boulevards of Paris as described through a series of postage stamps, narrated by a nine-year old girl who navigates the city for the first time. It is a small, tidy book, journal-like entries opposite the postage stamps, each related through a memory or occasion, personalized by a thoughtful girl reflecting on her experiences in Paris. The girl's collection mirrors a world within a world, visiting the usual tourist sites, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Montparnasse, the twisting Seine. Timbres is the French word for stamps and the girl carefully pastes each one into her orange stamp album with transparent pages, stamps from every country imaginable, all colors and shapes, decorated with fruit, flowers and people. There is even an open-air stamp market off the Champs-Elysses, the vendors eager to share their wares with the neophyte stamp collector. The family settles in for their year in France, picnicking on balmy days, viewing the Luxumborg Gardens to see tulips and poppies, as well as the gardens of the Tuilleries by the Louve. They snack on fried fish, fritures, on the banks of the Marne River outside of Paris. As the year winds down, the girl bids adieux to her schoolmates, who line up to "pour faire les bisoux- to kiss me goodbye on the cheek." Later, back home in California, the girl keeps her treasured book of collected stamps on a nearby shelf; whenever she grows nostalgic for those picturesque Parisian days, she turns the pages, reliving her adventures, each memory reflected in the stamp so carefully pasted on the page. This small, colorful selection is the repository for fond memories of a fascinating country, Postmarked Paris. Appropriate for child or adult, this whimsical book will most likely hold the interest of nine and up, the journal entries full of names and French phrases, the writing small and personal, family outings and details of this extraordinary city. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

For lovers of Nick Bantock (Griffin & Sabine,), and Karen Elizabeth Gordon, (Deluxe Trasitive Vampire, and Paris Out of Hand,) this small volume is a time capsule of a young girl's year growing up in Paris. Told via her stamp collection, (1 colorful French stamp and one life-vignette per page,) it traces her year with her family and school friends until the end, when they must leave Paris to come back to the United States. Inspires anyone interested in collage, (although there are no collages in the book per se, I loved it anyway,) Parisian life, and stamp collecting. The only thing I wanted was more. Where is the author now? How did her stamp collection become this book? Why is this book out of print?? Alas.