Customer Reviews

The Story of the Pilgrims (Pictureback(R))

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been perusing children's books for historical events and people. This is a nice introduction to the Mayflower and the history of Thanksgiving. It gives enough detail that very young children will actually learn some history, yet it is short and to the point to keep their interest. The only fault is that I could not get a hardcover edition.

I like this one better than The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern.

This is a great book for introducing the concept of the first settlers in America. Considering the targeted age, which I think is 4 or 5 year olds, I can handle some minor inaccuracies. It communicates on a simple level the difficulties that the Separatists felt in England, their courage to leave their homeland for an unknown territory, their lengthy time at sea, and their ideas about their unknown Indian neighbors which were corrected by the generous way the Indians helped them. It ends by simply stating that we still observe Thanksgiving today, inspired by this pilgrim's feast, helping a young child understand that we are still connected to these courageous people. It takes some complicated ideas and deals with them in a way that young minds can understand.

This book was wonderful for my preschool class. It helped introduce them to why we have a Thanksgiving feast. As I explained to my student's parents, four and five year olds are much to young to be burdened with future genocide discussions.

i was looking for a good historical thanksgiving book for my 22 month old daughter. this certainly fits the bill. the text is simple enough for her to understand. and the illustrations are clear, colorful and large. she asks me repeatedly to read this book to her.

I haven't purchased this book (and won't) because when I used the Amazon feature to "look inside" the book I could see the first page of text. The first sentence is something like "in the 1600's in England were a group of people called Pilgrims...". No there weren't. They were Separatists who didn't want to worship in the king's Church of England. Once they made their journey to Holland and then the New World, they later were known as Pilgrims for taking their journey. The first sentence of this book shows me that the whole presentation will so oversimplified that the story will not be told well or accurately.

Pass...

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival; a time to show appreciation for all we have. Teaching our children a biased viewpoint of the First Thanksgiving empowers racism to continue in this country. Popular renditions of the First Thanksgiving (such as this book) give children the mistaken impression that the relationship between American Indians and English colonists was one of mutual help, respect and friendship. This popular belief does not take into account the way in which the colonists persecuted the American Indians, sold them into slavery and drove them from their homes. Not to mention the epidemic diseases colonists brought to America, genocide and erosion of tribal soverreignty. Get to know American Indian history through their stories, captured by Gerald McDermott or other authors at another time of year rather than celebrating the dreadful.