The Very First Thanksgiving Day

This is a simple and nice story about the first Thanksgiving...perfect for young elementary students. The illustrations are colorful and appealing.

My children are 3 and 5 at this time (boy and girl) and I have been having a hard time finding good age appropriate books about Thanksgiving. When they were younger I used "The Story of Thanksgiving" boardbook by Nancy J. Skarmeas. A book that is pretty much on target for the toddler and early preschool crowd. But what to do now? We looked at several books over this season and have come to the conclusion that "The Very First Thanksgiving Day" rates pretty well. It has wonderful artwork, and it's rhythmic verse makes it a good read-aloud. (An example of verse follows so you can judge for yourself) "This is the food, gathered and blessed, the corn and sweet berries, the wild turkey dressed, shared on the very first Thanksgiving Day. These are the Indians, skillful and strong, who knew how to live through the winters so long and ate the food gathered and blessed." As you can see from the cover the artwork is very nice and the author has taken pains to include the results of her research into the topic. For example, in one picture an Indian is depicted showing the colonists how to plant corn with a 'fish dressing'. [The fish decay and fertilize the corn.] The only 'Cons' I would note is that the poem is not a very good device in relating facts. So that if you didn't already know about fish being used as fertilizer you and your children would miss out on that fact. Also, I would say that working 'backwards' in time from the Feast, over the ocean to England could be rather confusing to some younger children. (I had to explain what was happening to my 5 year old and I'm still not sure she gets it.) Three and a half Stars. I would buy this book based on its artwork alone and the fact that the author and artist has painstakingly worked to be accurate. The book is a good read-aloud but if you are looking to present 'facts' you might want to supplement with another text. We like "The Pilgrims First Thanksgiving" by Ann McGovern.

This is a beautifully illustrated picture book for young children about the original Thanksgiving feast for the pilgrims and indians (the author's preferred term based on historical precedence, as she explains in the Foreword). The text is placed into a gentle rhyme that takes us back to the landing at Plymouth rock, where a series of lovely paintings then depict the people's lives in their village by the harbor that first year. It is obvious that the illustrator put a lot of careful attention into researching for historical accuracy. This is a teaching technique that is particularly effective for an age group in which a picture is truly worth a thousand words. Although hardships and struggles are hinted at in both rhyme and painting, the real focus is on the positive relationship between the two peoples as the Indians helped the Pilgrims adapt to their new home. The only caveat -- for christians and anyone who is a monotheist -- is that this book nowhere mentions God, who is after all the reason for this holiday. It is a significant historical fact that the Pilgrims fled England due to religious persecution, and that this first Thanksgiving Feast was in Giving Thanks to God for His blessings and bounty. Later, Abraham Lincoln officially pronounced Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November and reaffirmed that it was a holiday specifically set aside to revere God. So, the author's careful avoidance of this fact is a disappointment to me.But if you are more on the politically correct side, you will find this book to be a perfect introduction to Thanksgiving for your children.

The poetic text and rich art of this book complement each other perfectly. It presents a good amount of information in a simple format so that even young preschoolers can start to understand the origins of this tradition. This book reads like a classic...it's lovely!

This story begins and ends with the very first Thanksgiving Day but the scope of the book is much wider than that day. The carefully rhymed text and realistic illustrations invite the reader to take a step back, then another, and another, all the way back to the Pilgrims leaving their homeland and boarding the Mayflower. The result is that the day is put into historical context in a way that's understandable even to the very young. This is a wonderful, age-appropriate look at what the Pilgrims had to go through just to get to the first Thanksgiving Day, and how the Indians helped them.