Whether you want to teach your kids historical facts and events about Thanksgiving or remind them about gratitude and all your blessings, here are ten Thanksgiving books for kids (in alphabetical order).
1. The Berenstain Bears: Thanksgiving Blessings
Ride along with the Bear family on Thanksgiving Day as Brother and Sister learn about all the things they – and you – can be thankful for…including faith, family, and the huge feast waiting for them at the end of their journey to Gramp’s and Gran’s.
2. Blood on the River: James Town 1607
Samuel Collier, a twelve-year-old orphan, becomes the page of Captain John Smith and boards the Susan Constant bound for the New World. He can’t believe he’s so fortunate, but reality soon shows him that the New World is nothing like he imagined. While the Virginia shore is beautiful, it’s also a challenging place where the people you meet might be an ally or an enemy. As Samuel learns the Algonquian language and notices Captain Smith’s wise mediation and peacekeeping skills, Samuel realizes he can be whomever he wants to be in this new place.
3. . . . If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620
A different time…a different place…What if you were there? Learn how the Pilgrims traveled to the New World on the Mayflower and built the town of Plymouth.
If you sailed on the Mayflower
–What could you take with you?
–How would you keep clean?
–What would you do when you first got to shore?
Get ready to go back in time to 1620 to discover what it was like to sail the Mayflower!
4. Molly’s Pilgrim
Molly and her family are recent immigrants from Russia. The children in her class make fun of the way she talks and dresses. Molly is sad and wishes she could move to New York or back to Russia where there are other Jewish families. Molly’s participation in a school assignment about Thanksgiving pilgrims helps her and her classmates discover that it takes all kinds of pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving and that Molly truly belongs in America.
5. Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans
In this funny historical fiction book, a middle-school history teacher named Rush Revere has a talking horse and travels back in time to experience American history as it happens. In this particular book (one in a series), he is transported back to the deck of the Mayflower. Readers learn about how the families in the colony worked their own land, learned lessons in sharing and distributing food and goods, and shared the first Thanksgiving.
6. Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving
In the author’s evangelical point of view, this entertaining and historical story shows that the actual hero of Thanksgiving was neither white nor Indian but God. In 1608, English traders came to Massachusetts and captured a twelve-year-old Indian, Squanto, and sold him into slavery. He was raised by Christians and taught faith in God. Ten years later he was sent home to America. Upon arrival, he learned an epidemic had wiped out his entire village, but God had plans for Squanto. God delivered a Thanksgiving miracle: an English-speaking Indian living in the exact place where the Pilgrims landed in a strange new world.
7. The Story of the Pilgrims
Your family’s youngest historians can learn about the Pilgrims’ first year in America – from the dangerous voyage across the Atlantic to the first harsh winter to the delicious Thanksgiving feast.
8. Thanksgiving on Thursday (Magic Tree House, #27)
Jack and Annie head back in time via the Magic Tree House to 1621 and the first Thanksgiving Day. The Pilgrims ask them to help get the feast and celebration ready, but whether it’s cooking or clamming, Jack and Annie don’t know how to do anything the Pilgrim way. Will they ruin the holiday forever or will the celebration take place?
9. Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving
Editor and author Sarah Hale used her writing talents to convince President Abraham Lincoln that Thanksgiving should be a national holiday for America to celebrate together annually. In 1863, after Hale’s thirty-five years of petitioning and orations, Abraham Lincoln signed the Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring it a national holiday.
10. ‘Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving
In poetic form, the author tells a story about how eight boys and girls take a field trip to a turkey farm the day before Thanksgiving. They have fun playing with eight exuberant turkeys but are shocked to learn that the farmer plans to kill all the turkeys for Thanksgiving dinners. The children decide to smuggle all the turkeys home, and all their Thanksgiving dinners become vegetarian this year. The turkeys’ lives are saved!
Check out more Thanksgiving tips!
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