What was the first Thanksgiving like?
Well, in Squanto’s Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving, by Joseph Bruchac, a Native American man named Squanto goes on a remarkable journey throughout his life, including how he first met the English people.
In the book, Squanto was captured and forced into slavery. He was able to be freed because he became a translator for the English when they took him back to New England. He returned home to find out all his family members were dead because the English brought a sickness.
I was surprised that the story was different than what I was taught – that when the English pilgrims came, the Native Americans said “Oh let’s be friends, you can share our land!” Actually, the English tried to take over the land and kill Native Americans.
The book explains about how Squanto tried to bring peace between Native Americans and the English. Squanto could have been really mad after everything that happened to him. But he was a man of peace and he used his knowledge of both the English and Native American people to help them get along during the harvest. They had enough good food for a feast.
That became the feast of Thanksgiving.
At first I didn’t really like this book. It was really confusing because of the way the story was going back and forth on what happened. Mom and Tita V had to help me understand it. The back cover says it is for ages 6-9, but I think it’s better for ages 11-13.
Even if this book was hard to understand, I feel it was good that the author told about what really happened and how Native Americans were treated.
What I did like about the book was the illustrations by Greg Shed! They were so detailed and really realistic.
This book gets 2 out of 4 roses.