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.

This is a simply put story in a prose form. It was good for kindergarten and first grade. they enjoyed the repetition and the info they learned.

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.

Going to be keeping this with our fall decor to pull out. My kids loved this story.

Great illustrations. Good story to introduce young readers to the First Thanksgiving. Easy to read aloud.

loves it

This book has serene artwork and well chosen script for a child to understand and remember. It is historically correct as well!! The format of repetitive verse is wonderfully accomplished.

The illustrations are beautiful and engaging. The story is brief and there is just the right amount of text on each page to keep kids with fairly short attention spans engaged. The poetic form is a little confusing for little ones though. It's not exactly chronological, it goes backward in time in the story and then forward again. I'm not sure children get it if it is the only book you read about the first Thanksgiving. But as part of a week-long Thanksgiving unit or something, it is lovely.