The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World

An engaging journey with the Pilgrims. Having read this makes a visit to Cape Cod so much more meaningful. This book puts people and places in perspective.

I love the writing style of this book that was "adapted for young people" from the "adult" version of "Mayflower". It is a captivating account of the settling of the Plymouth Colony and know that I was happier reading this version (I have several post graduate degrees by the way) than I would have been reading the "adult" version. Five stars and it is no wonder Nathaniel Philbrick won the National Book Award.

Nathaniel Philbrick is the winner of the National Book Award for his nonfiction work on The Mayflower and earned an impressive fourteen Best Books accolades in 2006 for the same. /The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World/ is an adaptation of that original work for young readers. He successfully took our simple understanding of the original voyage on the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving, and turned it into a colorfully woven tapestry illustrated for the enjoyment of any age reader. He blends the challenges the Pilgrims endured, and their adventures with the Natives, into a textbook culture of their times unfolding a story of courage, intrigue, deception, and greed. He took fact-finding to whole new level by telling a story from actual archives of history. I would have enjoyed history much more in school with his definitive work. His story spans from early 1608 to the fall of 1676 setting the tone for us to view the human lives; strengths and frailties, that our fore-fathers suffered and fought. They gave up so much just for the promise of a new life, new government and freedom for their religion. Nathaniel depicts the truths, and spotlights the flaws in our perception of the period back then. He is true to history and culture while portraying real human emotions. This is a book I would recommend to readers of all ages, genres and teachers alike! Reviewed by M. Chris Johnson

Nathaniel Philbrick has adapted and abridged his New York Times bestselling historical narrative MAYFLOWER: A Story of Courage, Community, and War for a younger audience. THE MAYFLOWER AND THE PILGRIMS' NEW WORLD includes numerous sketches, maps and photographs of artifacts, detailed timelines and insets of historical biographies, all of which add to its accessibility. The book begins with an English colony of Separatists living quietly in Leiden, Holland, longing for the quiet and familiar English village life now lost to them, and determined to establish a small, inwardly focused colony in the New World where they would be free to worship as they chose. Some of the most vivid prose deals with the Pilgrims' preparations for their journey. The writing deftly captures both their fear of the perilous journey they felt compelled to undertake, and the stoicism and courage of this small and humble congregation in the face of their low odds of success. Philbrick makes it easy to visualize the triumphs and frustrations of the daily lives of the Pilgrims, from the terrible death toll on the high seas to the difficult first landing in Cape Cod and their subsequent move to the more hospitable Plymouth Bay. An eerie emptiness greeted them on the Massachusetts coast --- a plague had recently decimated the locals. In this dangerous and new land, they encountered the Pokanoket Indians and their charismatic sachem Massasoit, whose initial offer of help and protection saved them from certain death. The friendship, cooperation and mutual dependence that grew between the Indians and the Pilgrims lasted 50 years. However, as the Pilgrims' reach into New England grew and the Indians began to recognize the threat they represented, and both groups grew less dependent on each other, it became increasingly difficult to maintain peace. Massasoit's son Philip brashly launched a complicated war (now known as King Philip's War) that claimed the lives of eight percent of the men of Plymouth Colony. Terrible as these deaths were to the colonists, the Indians were to suffer even graver losses, with 60-80% of the Native American population of southern New England lost during those and subsequent years through death, disease, being sold into slavery, or by fleeing the region. Philbrick effectively dispatches the various mythologies and romances surrounding those times, instead giving us complex, fallible and believable figures in Massasoit, William Bradford, Squanto and company. The famed First Thanksgiving meal (probably held in late September or early October of 1621), for example, did not involve Pilgrims and Indians sitting in a tidy group at a long table and praying together as popular Victorian art would have it. Instead, "most of the celebrants stood, squatted, or sat on the ground as they gathered around outdoor fires, where the deer and birds turned on wooden spits and where pottages --- stews into which varieties of meats and vegetables were thrown --- cooked invi

"Thanksgiving Day has a whole new meaning once the true story of the pilgrims' settlement along Cape Cod comes into light in this book...History comes alive with Philbrick's careful consideration of each puzzle piece.. bringing both worlds of the Puritans and the Native Americans together as they truly happened...(more)" ~ Lynn Pritchett, Contributing Writer at Suite101.com