Every year about this time, I pull out Thanksgiving: A Harvest Celebration to read to my daughter. Published in 2003, this book is a mature and rather sober presentation of the Mayflower voyage and settling.
With text by Julie Stiegemeyer and illustrations by Renné Benoit, the story presents the life of young Ellen Chilton and her Puritan family, first aboard the Mayflower and then after they land in America.
Readers get the sense of privations the family underwent, the excitement at the sight of land, the labor involved in building the first shelter in a new land, and the despair at disease that beset many that first winter; readers also get a sense of their fervent faith.
After this dark beginning, hope comes with spring. In this telling of the story, Ellen happens to be the one who meets Samoset, the first Native American who becomes the settlers’ first friend and teacher. Through him they learn to survive in a land so different from the one they left.
The story only follows the family through autumn, which affords the ample harvest and three-day celebration of thanks. The book then turns to our modern Thanksgiving celebration, modeled on the original.
What I appreciate about this text for children is that is in keeping with the truth—it gives a simple but accurate depiction of arduous life for Mayflower settlers.
The colors used in the paintings are all tinted with brown, even the last few illustrations, which depict modern times.
The clarity of tone of one of the final paintings, though, one showing the abundance of harvest within the framework of a modern curtain and window case, feels brighter and more hopeful than others. But this is a subtle change that doesn’t impair the feeling that pervades the whole: reverence.
