Wednesday Reviews: Thanksgiving Stories

I know it’s cutting it close, but on this day before Thanksgiving, I’d like to review some books for the diners who are sitting at the kid’s table.

The first is The Night Before Thanksgiving“>. Like the characters in this book, my children and their cousins giggle about the same things I snickered over with my cousins — goofing off at the kid’s table, putting olives on our fingers, and eating leftover turkey sandwiches. Nostalgic and fun.

The second is a more artful story The Very First Thanksgiving Day, which touches on the fact that we Western Europeans owe our very survival on this continent to the Native Americans who shared their skills and bounty with our ancestors so many years ago. Beautiful illustrations and a repetitive rhythm children love. Artful and insightful.

My seven year old daughter fell in love with this book, which she read to her two year old cousin last week. It’s not about our Fall holiday, but it does a lovely job of encouraging gratitude. Give Me Grace is short enough to memorize in a couple of readings, and the alluring illustrations feed the eye as well as the soul. Bright and meaningful.

Finally, I’d like to recommend this pretty, classic story. Ox-Cart Man is not directly about Thanksgiving, but it’s cyclical story of growing-and-harvesting captures the turning of the seasons, while it’s spare bounty quietly instills a since of gratitude amongst our overly-modern children. Classic and grateful.

Click on the links in this post to order these items, or any items at Magpie Reviews, and your purchases will help fund this site. Thank you for your support!

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 6:34 am and is filed under Magpie Mama.
Tags: books, Magpie Mama, reviews, thanksgiving



You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.