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Synopsis
An ABC picture book sharing Thanksgiving history with young children
Children's Literature
Each letter in this informative book about the historical roots of Thanksgiving is hand-drawn with a large, bold calligraphic style—the illustrations are "wrapped" around, over and through the giant-sized letters and the backgrounds are smallish wallpaperlike images representative of the text for the particular letter being discussed. The colorful illustrations have a slightly fuzzy quality that makes them look old- fashioned and suit the text perfectly. K is for king—King James I of England is shown in regal splendor and his stand that everyone must attend his church or be persecuted for failing to obey him (the king was head of the church), makes it clear that the people left England for religious reasons. Other historical aspects of the feast- filled holiday are included with such facts as: L is for Lincoln who proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 ("...became president many years after the colonists landed in America"). N is for November, the month that Thanksgiving is celebrated and also the month that the Mayflower landed in 1620. It would have been helpful for the map showing the spot the ship reached was not just a depiction of the coastline of Massachusetts with Plymouth marked with an X ; a small detail, but I do think that readers need the perspective of the entire continent to gauge where the X is in relationship to where they live. On the P page we do see the Pilgrims' ("... travels for religious reasons") route on a map showing North America as well as Europe and Africa for perspective. " ... In time, all early Plymouth colonists became known as Pilgrims." Bringing the focus to current day is the Gpage. G is for the games probably played during the harvest festival—"Today, football games are an American Thanksgiving tradition" (in many households!). The introductory historical note and the addition of phonetic pronunciations for the Indian names help to make this a worthwhile addition to the body of Thanksgiving literature.