| Title | : | This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 068814554X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780688145545 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 32 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2001 |
This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story Reviews
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Laura Krauss Melmed's This First Thanksgiving Day is basically a fun and engaging counting rhyme picture book for younger children and as such, it introduces, practices the numbers one to twelve, whilst also showing the legendary story of the "first" American Thanksgiving.
Now while I do in fact appreciate the fact that the author has included historical details and that as far as I can tell, both Pilgrims and Native Americans are depicted as relatively historically accurate, I still do very much wish Laura Krauss Melmed had chosen to acknowledge the fact and truth that while the 1621 Plymouth Colony harvest celebration might have well been the first White Anglo Saxon Protestant Thanksgiving celebration in the continental USA, Native Americans had of course been celebrating autumn harvest celebrations of thanksgiving a long time before North America was colonised by Europe/Europeans.
And really, the entire featured storyline of This First Thanksgiving Day does indeed and actually generally seem more than a little "too sweet and sappy to be true" but as this is primarily a story for very young children, this fact can and perhaps even should be at least somewhat forgiven and overlooked, although if this here book were to be used with older children, some of the more problematic aspects of the concept of American Thanksgiving and the rather facile and not entirely accurate idea and belief that Pilgrims and Native Americans simply became permanent friends should also be discussed (no actually, needs also to be discussed).
As to the accompanying illustrations, while I like the general colour scheme used by Mark Buehner, and greatly appreciate the fact that he has depicted both Pilgrims and Native Americans garbed historically accurately (and in a respectful manner), with no Pilgrims wearing hats with buckles, and also, and perhaps even more importantly, no Native Americans donning gaudy feathers and painted faces, I do still have some frustrating issues with certain aspects of the pictures in general. For one, the stylised, grinning facial expressions I find rather majorly creepy (and not at all natural, almost as if the pilgrims, as if the Native Americans, are experiencing some kind of widely grinning tetanic rigour). And for two, I really do not think that a fledgling colony such as Plymouth was in 1621, would have had the resources nor would the Pilgrims likely even have had the required time to have constructed the large and elaborate houses and garden plots that are depicted (while Mark Buehner's illustrations of the tent like domiciles of the Native Americans look authentic enough, the houses of the settlers look much much too opulent, and more like 19th and 20th century farm residences than what I believe most settlers' houses would have looked like in mid 17th century America). All in all though, This First Thanksgiving Day is still a decent enough Thanksgiving based counting book for younger children just learning their numbers (both text and illustrations do work reasonably well together, my personal quibbles regarding the authenticity of some of the pictorial presentations notwithstanding, and thus two and a half stars, if half stars were possible, but really at least for me personally, not quite yet three stars). -
My niece made this choice last night. It has beautiful art and the counting is somewhat interesting. It gives the flavor of a cozy Thanksgiving.
I think this was below her level and she wanted to read it anyway. She can count. -
Before anything else, I have to say counting from one to twelve seems kind of an arbitrary number. Twelve has no significance with Thanksgiving, the harvest, or anything else. It would have made more sense to count from one to ten like many counting books I've seen.
That being said, I think the book was very cute, almost a little too cute. The illustrations were very child-like and almost overly happy, but I guess that's part of the appeal to children. More classic or beautiful artwork seems to have less grab when it comes to my children, especially the son that loves this book most. He's almost three right now.
The counting is very simple and the rhymes are cute. While I wouldn't exactly call it a historical book in any means, but it is a cute way to relate counting to the Thanksgiving holiday. It can make learning fun and seasonal. -
Cute for counting. Good copy in our local library, but might buy if the price was right.
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I didn't know how this would be, because I had been reading some bad ones recently and didn't expect much from this one. So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was enjoying this. You can tell from the cover that the illustrations are adorable, very cute figures. The colors are deep and vivid and a pleasure to look at. The pages of the sea with all the little choppy waves and the ship in the distance was stunning. It made me want to just stop and look at it for a while. I also liked the scene with the 10 Wampanoag girls in their home, with a fire burning in the middle while they made their baskets. The room is full of shadows and it was a really nice picture. The illustrations are great and I hope to find other books with this illustrator. They make or break a book.
I liked how this predominately featured the Native Americans. I noticed that it was mostly about them instead of the white Pilgrims, so that was refreshing. It clearly showed that 2 cultures were involved. I appreciated that there were little tidbits shared so we could learn something about their ways of life.
Like Pilgrims wearing linen. They came on a ship. They pulled up roots in their gardens: turnips and parsnips for soup. They would pick up sticks to make fires at their homes. The women got water from water runs, which I've never heard of, filling buckets at this trough. They collected maize that Squanto taught them how to plant in the spring.
The Native Americans wore deerskin. The girls gathered nuts. The boys helped their dads catch fish and would eat the fish then or dry to have during the winter. The boys hunted rabbits. The boys dug for clams for their stews. The girls made baskets from cattail reeds.
The rhymes were really touching and sweet. I didn't expect it to have rhymes, thought it would only list objects and things to count, like the 12 Days of Christmas. It had more to offer in that way and was informative, because they were all a sentence long informing us on the way of life for both cultures.
One scene depicted 6 Wampanoag boys hunting for rabbits and bows. They didn't shoot rabbits with arrows! They set traps for them, so that was a big inaccuracy.
One page said they were pulling up turnips for the pottage pot and I had no idea what that was. I've never heard that term before, so I looked it up and pottage is soup or stew. It would have been more reader-friendly to say stew pot.
I didn't read the summary because summaries for picture books usually give whole lines and plot endings away. It wasn't until after I got done that my sister told me about the dinosaurs and turkeys and things hidden on the pages. And then it hit me that I have come across this illustrator before, in Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Christmas. One boy's shadow was a dinosaur, and one person had a little brown dinosaur on their plate. I find that bizarre and dinosaurs shouldn't be showing up in a book featuring a time period other than when they were really here. I mean someone had a dinosaur on their plate! And how could a boy ever look like a dinosaur in shadow? It's a terrible decision! Finding shapes is interactive for the reader but it distracts from the content and should only be in a book about finding objects, like I Spy, not a regular picture book.
I liked the last pages where the characters who had been mostly separate up until now all met up for the feast. The author wrote that they were Wampanoag and Pilgrim friends breaking bread together, joined under one sky and saying one prayer on this first Thanksgiving day. What a nice message to send readers off with. -
This is a fun story combining Thanksgiving holiday tradition, (somewhat of) a historical perspective, counting and a hidden bunny on every page to boot. Our girls enjoyed this story very much.
This book was featured as one of the selections for the
November 2015: Thanksgiving discussion for the
Picture-Book Club in the Children's Books Group here at Goodreads. -
My problem with this book is what other people seem to think is the strength - the illustrations.
This is another book that romanticizes the First Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag are smiling so hard their eyes are closed. It looks like summer and everyone is just so very happy and cheerful & the celebration looks like how we would act it out, but not so much like it probably was. -
With so few Thanksgiving books out there, it's great to come across one that I haven't seen before. This is a counting book with historically accurate details about Plimoth, it's colonists and the native peoples, the Wampanoags. Definitely worth adding to your home or library holiday book collection for very young readers.
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I have used this story successfully in story times about Thanksgiving. The illustrations are very cute and large enough to share with a group. Each of the short rhyming poems propels the story forward. A very nice Thanksgiving offering.
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A sweet little counting story depicting the way Pilgrim and Native American children prepared for the first Thanksgiving. No, it's not factual, and yes, the children are all smiling, but hey - it's a cute story!
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This counting book goes from 1 to 12 and features a variety of activities that the Wampanoag and Pilgrims most likely engaged in. I really loved the illustrations. It's a simple story, geared for younger readers and does not contain a great deal of detail.
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Definitely not the best counting book. Illustrations are too sweet and unrealistic for me. Four hundred years ago I don’t think Plymouth had that suburban look where everything looks tidy like these illustrations do.
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Read at a Thanksgiving-themed Saturday Family Story Time on 11/19/11:
http://storytimesecrets.blogspot.com/... -
While not necessarily historically accurate, it seems at least culturally sensitive. Better than many.
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This is a counting story which was lots of fun. It shared information about Thanksgiving and counted at the same time. Great fun.
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I was hoping for some adults to show up, although I know the book showcases children because this is a children's book, and the kids would relate to characters their own ages. But it was starting to look like kids were running the town, like only kids lived there.
Adults finally show up on the last page, and you can see everyone--the Pilgrims and Wampanoag--all together for the Thanksgiving feast.
I really liked the part that said ‘9 in the cornfield, bringing in the maize, sowed with care as Squanto taught last spring on planting days.’
It was the first historical element that we all know from the first Thanksgiving, how Squanto helped the pilgrims survive.
I also liked the last lines: ’12 tables groaning beneath a harvest spread--Wampanoag and Pilgrim friends together will break bread. Joined under one sky with one prayer to say--a prayer of thanks for all they have this first Thanksgiving Day.’
I wondered at the end why twelve days were chosen. Before I thought this might follow the rhyme of The Twelve Days of Christmas, but it wasn’t written in that same pattern where you sing it while reading. So I guess it was just a plain counting book, and didn’t mimic anything.
In the end, I felt like it was missing something. I don’t know what it is I wanted. Maybe more of a Thanksgiving feel. At times, it felt like it was more on the daily chores of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, and it didn’t feel like Thanksgiving until the last page. Maybe if they had said they were gathering food specifically for the upcoming feast or something.
The illustrations were cute. I really liked the page with the Wampanoag boys catching fish in the bay. The blue/purple ocean was pretty. And also the page with the boys digging for clams in the ocean. I love the ripples in the water that the illustrator painted. The sky was pretty throughout the book, too.
I liked that the book highlighted Pilgrims and Wampanoag equally. Usually you find books more about the Pilgrims, so this book did a good job with that.
I liked seeing the different hairstyles the Wampanoag had on the last page at the feast, and wondered if they were historically accurate.
The author dedicated this to the memory of her grandma’s ‘who voyaged to the New World in their time’ and I thought that was a sweet dedication. She was inspired by a visit to Plymouth, Massachusetts as a kid where she saw the Plymouth Rock. I’ve read about the Plymouth Rock, how it used to be much bigger than the size it is today.
As I read, I noticed there were animals throughout, like rabbits, deer, and turkey, even on the pages where it didn’t make sense for them to be, like inside the lodge. I noticed on the page with the 11 kids playing tag, one boy’s shadow was a dinosaur.
I wondered if this was a hidden picture book that I didn’t know about. I decided to flip back through the book and see if I noticed anything else. On the page with 3 kids pulling vegetables from the garden, there was a dinosaur head in the trees peeping behind a house. On the page with 7 girls fetching water, there’s a small dark-colored dinosaur horizontal by the tree, in front of the rabbit. It’s almost too dark to notice. On the sandbar page with 8 kids digging for clams, there’s an upside down dinosaur in the clouds by the ship.
I don’t really like hidden images like that, especially when you’re not expecting them. It can drive you crazy looking for them, not knowing exactly what to look at, or how many are in the book. You’re wondering if you missed any. The dinosaurs didn’t fit in this book, either. A more appropriate shape would have been good, like a turkey or something to fit the Thanksgiving theme.
As I was looking at the page with the four boys catching fish, I saw this weird thin red shape coming out of the rocks. I couldn’t make out what it was at all. It wasn’t until after I read the inside jacket how there was supposed to be a turkey on every page that I realized it was a turkey head poking out. -
Genre: Poetry
Grade Level: K-2
This poem about the first Thanksgiving Day is a very enriching poem to young children. It allows students to learn the history of the first thanksgiving and how everything was prepared to make the feast. Not only does it give a fun, educational account of the first Thanksgiving, but it also incorporates a counting up to the feast. This is a good tool for pre-k and Kindergarten students. For a follow up activity, I could ask the students to write what their families do for thanksgiving and then ask them to relate something their family does with something the indians and the pilgrims did. Then, the students can share their answers with the class. This will allow them to learn about other classmate's traditions. -
Celebrate the very first Thanksgiving in this exuberant counting story from best-selling author Laura Krauss Melmed. From I dressed in linen to 10 making baskets, this rollicking verse shows Wampanoag and Pilgrim friends preparing for and sharing a wonderful Thanksgiving feast.
Vibrant illustrations from critically acclaimed artist Mark Buehner only add to the fun! Count up the rabbits, squirrels, and other small creatures tucked into each scene. Find the bold turkey on every page ... and for the very sharp of eye, there are all sorts of surprises hidden in the art! -
This is a short counting book (from 1-12) that shows Wampanoug and Pilgrim friends coming together for a Thanksgiving feast. Each page flips back and forth between both groups showing what they did to prepare for the big day. It is told in an easy rhyme and includes some really spectacular illustrations. Charlotte loves to find the rabbits and turkey that are hidden throughout several of the pictures.
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It's a
fun way to introduce where the Thanksgiving holiday comes from. It's a well-crafted story that allows parents to count other objects on the page, not just the ones described in the narrative. If the number is 4, you'll find four fish, four fisherman, four birds. -
Counting book that goes through the very basic of basics for the first Thanksgiving focusing more on the pilgrim and american indian children than anything else. Prayer is mentioned in the last sentence of the book--I'll modify that to be able to use it for storytimes.
Good for preschool or toddler storytimes. -
OH We love this Thanksgiving book, I pull it out each Thanksgiving. I think it is one that my children will remember and what to show their children when they come to visit Grand and Grandp's at Thanksgiving, At least I hope.
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I loved the illustrations in this book. Every time I read it to my little girl I would find more things hidden in the pictures. It's a darling story to teach the basics of the first thanksgiving. Very cute!
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Beautiful illustrations and counting fun for your preschooler with a lovely rhythm to the rhymes. Get a look at some of the real history and practices of the Wapanoag and Pilgrim inhabitants for a fun Thanksgiving read.
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This is a great book to introduce counting to a kindergarten class. Each page is beautifully illustrated with the deception of Thanksgiving through rhyming texts. It's a good book to use around Thanksgiving time and incorporate a lesson plan.
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It's a very cute book. It counts and rhymes, but it is very stereotypical first Thanksgiving picture (the relationship between the pilgrims and Native Americans was perfect). Not that I expect an early childhood book to go into that deep of detail about that, but it works in the opposite direction.
