***1621:  A New Look at Thanksgiving

by Catherine O’Neill Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac with Plimouth Plantation
Photographs by Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson

Reviewed December 15, 2001.
National Geographic Society.  2001.  48 pages.  Available at Sembach Library J 394.264 GRA).

Unfortunately, this book arrived a little too late for Thanksgiving this year.  However, it is a beautiful book.  Lavishly illustrated with photographs from the living history museum at Plimouth Plantation, it tells the true story of the “first Thanksgiving,” which probably wasn’t really the first Thanksgiving at all.

The pictures in this book don’t show the traditional costumes school kids dress up in for Thanksgiving--our stereotypes came from later artists’ conceptions of how the Pilgrims and Indians looked.  And that’s only the beginning.  This book presents an interesting, well-researched account of how the English settlers and the native tribes actually lived.  The result is magnificent.  This book will be a wonderful resource to present children with the true story of what happened in 1621.

Review of a companion volume:
Mayflower 1620:  A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage

 

Copyright © 2003 Sondra Eklund.  All rights reserved.

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