Hark! The Aardvark Angels Sing
written and illustrated by Teri Sloat
Putnam, 2001

Available in paperback from Scholastic in fall, 2002!

Reviews

Publisher's Weekly: Set to the rollicking beat of the classic carol, this sublimely silly tale salutes a band of unconventional mail carriers around the world. From the desert…to the bayou, the intrepid winged helpers never miss a beat, nor do the playful rhymes. Bright watercolor crayon and acrylic illustrations brim with detail; cancelled postage stamps in the margins add to the global glee.

Booklist: Humor and see-and-find details abound, including inventive stamps and "cancellations" counting down the days. Kids will want to hear and sing this one repeatedly. Fun, festive, sure to become a favorite.

School Library Journal: This fantastical version of the traditional Christmas carol features Aardvark Angels who assist mail carriers to deliver the seasons heavy mounds of letters and packages…This title is perfect fun for Christmas reading and holiday story time sharing. The original score featuring the new lyrics is appended.

Midwest Book Review: Teri Sloat's Hark! The Aardvark Angels Sing, tells of Aardvark Angels who manage to help the mail carriers deliver all the good cheer of the season. Set to the Christmas song, this certainly is something different.

Hark! The Aardvark Angels Sing is also included in the Penguin Putnam Christmas CD.

About the Book

HARK! started as an alphabet book, called Aardvark Angels All Around. It was an alphabet that showed different animals getting ready for Christmas. A was for the Aardvark Angels, B was for Badgers bringing bright boxes, C was for Crocodiles cutting Christmas cookies. But every 4-5 pages through the book Aardvark Angels showed up to help the mailmen take care of mail. When Santa had his Zebras Zooming at the end, the mail he was carrying was still falling out and the Aardvark Angels were picking up all the mail that was floating around.

My editor said that she didn't think I had an alphabet book, but a book about Aardvark Angels, so I put the book away for a while to think about things. About 6 months later a young friend of mine asked me what happened to the book about mailmen that were Aardvark Angels. Soooooo…sometimes the editor is right. Soooo…after trying to write many different versions of a story about these little guys, I was listening to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" at Christmas time, but I realized I was singing HARK! THE AARDVARK ANGELS SING, LISTEN, HAROLD'S TRUMPETING…

The editors were great about working with a not so down-to-earth idea, and Susan Kochan and I had a lot of phone calls singing the song and reading the story so that the same words could work both ways. I think it really is a book about how hard it is to get the mail everywhere and how we take it for granted. When my husband and I lived in the bush in Alaska, we spent our first Christmas without mail—no packages, no cards, because bad weather kept our mail away for 3 weeks.

Teacher Activities Guide (click pdf icon below)