Thanksgiving Books
Posted by Debra Liverman on 21 Nov 2008 | Posted in: Holiday and Seasonal
With Thanksgiving just days away, the holiday season is officially here! I’ve listed some great Thanksgiving books to share with your students next week.
Little Tom Turkey
by Frances Bloam
Little Tom wants nothing more than to grow into a big, colorful turkey. Learn all about wild turkeys as Tom grows into the turkey he always wanted to be.
Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving
by Laurie Halse Anderson
Sarah Hale went on a 38-year-long letter-writing campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Read about her heroic efforts to bring the country together.
Samuel Eaton’s Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy
by Kate Waters
Take readers back to Pilgrim times with this photo-illustrated essay, which depicts a day in the life of a young boy at Plimouth Plantation.
How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story
by Eve Bunting
A Caribbean family from an unnamed country flees its home when faced with political uncertainty. They risk their lives traveling by boat to America, finally landing on Thanksgiving Day. Comparisons between the family’s thanks for freedom and that of the original Pilgrims help readers reflect on the true meaning of this American holiday.
The Pilgrims of Plimoth
by Marcia Sewall
Leaving behind their homes, Pilgrim men, women, and children undertook the treacherous journey across the Atlantic to a land where they could worship freely. Vivid illustrations and first-person narratives impart the daily struggles and joys in the close-knit community of Plimoth.
On the Mayflower
by Kate Waters
What was life like aboard the Mayflower? Full-color photographs and historically based text tell the tale of ship apprentice William Small.
Have you read any of these titles with your students? What other books do you traditionally read in your classroom?
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Try Jan Brett’s site - filled with thousands of ideas related to all of her stories. Also includes a list of all the books she’s written, her inspiration for writing many of her stories.
One of my favorite Thanksgiving books is A Cranberry Thanksgiving. Every year after reading it, we follow the recipe in the back of the book to make our own cranberry bread. YUM!
Thank You Sarah is a wonderful book! It has such great theme running throughout the story. It’s a beautiful story of a woman who WOULD NOT GIVE UP! Such a good lesson for our children at my school where poverty is high and giving up is easier than working harder than ever to get to the top. A great way to reinforce that thought as well as tie in some unusual history about Thanksgiving!
I am a new pre-k teacher and was hoping for some suggestions of good pre-k level books for christmas and the holidays.
Molly’s Pilgrim is another great classic book that relates “modern pilgrims” to those of the 1600s.
I LOVE the book ‘Off to Plymouth Rock’ by Dandi Daley Mackall (ISBN 1-4003-0194-7). It is a stellar way to talk about the orgins of the Thanksgiving Holiday, hits on rhyming, and repeats the title phrase over and over again. By the second time, around my kids are usually reading it with me! It is also a great vocabulary building book!
I love reading, “Pocahontas: Princess of Faith and Courage”. It is perfect for elementary students!
In addition to Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, one of my favorites to read with my class of pre-k’s is
*The First Thanksgiving Day by:
Laura K. Melmed
Wonderful full page art, Counting from 1 to 12
I teach pre k so we always read the following: There was an old lady who swallowed a pie, Twas the night before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Mice, and One Little Two Little Three Little Pilgrims to name a few
Do you have anything on Jan Brett, such as a list of books? How about an author’s study?