Living Books for Thanksgiving

Our family loves to learn via living books, so I often gather books from our own personal library, supplemented by our public library findings, to go along with a holiday, a season, or a time period or topic that we're studying. Then I'll load the chosen books into a basket, or place them on a low shelf or some other conspicuous place for easy perusal.

Here are some favorites from our Thanksgiving stack...

An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, by Louisa May Alcott, is the amusing story of a family's Thanksgiving celebration that gets a bit complicated when the parents must leave at the height of the preparations in order to attend a sick grandmother. Pure old-fashioned charm.

The Thanksgiving Story (Alice Dalgliesh), is the story of the first Thanksgiving as seen through the eyes of Giles, Constance, and Damaris Hopkins, children who came over on the Mayflower. This book is simply told, simply illustrated (by Helen Sewell), and is a perfect introduction to the history of Thanksgiving.

Three Young Pilgrims , by Cheryl Harness, also tells the story of the Pilgrims from the perspective of a Pilgrim family, the Allertons. Typical of Harness's children's books, this one is colorfully illustrated and full of interesting maps, diagrams, timelines, sketches, and factual tidbits in addition to the main text.

In Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember, Barbara Rainey narrates the history of Thanksgiving on two levels. If you're reading to younger children with limited attention spans, you can read only the passages in larger print; if your listeners are older, add the sections in smaller type. Either way, you will read the story from a distinctively Christian perspective. (As I shared with you last November, my own favorite part of this book is the accompanying CD of Thanksgiving hymns!)

Margaret Pumphrey's Pilgrim Stories, edited by Elvajean Hall, is my all-time favorite Thanksgiving book! Read through these seventeen easy chapters, and you will learn parts of the Pilgrims' story that you've never heard before! The inspiring narrative begins in 1606 in Scrooby, England at the home of Separatist elder William Brewster, and continues through the first year of the Plymouth colony. We have read Pilgrim Stories aloud many times, but I am always, always inspired by the difficult choices, the personal sacrifice these men and women made to be able to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.


Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving book?

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This post is linked to Children's Book Monday at A Path Made Straight which is a fabulous place to find delightful children's book recommendations. On more than one occasion, I have searched for one of Elise's featured books at my local library...only to find that it has already been checked out or put on hold! When that happens, it's usually because Kristin has beaten me to it!