Thanksgiving on Thursday

I really enjoyed this book, the main message was to never give up trying something new. I believe that the plot was well set up and seemed to follow a logical order. The author made sure that the main characters were not perfect at helping the Pilgrims because they did not know how to do it the pilgrim way. I believe that is very important because it adds a sense of reality into the story. Another part of the story I really enjoyed were the characters, I had never read a Magic Tree House book before this one and Ms. Osborne made her characters incredibly relatable and loveable. The reader never wants to put the book down and is drawn in by the two main characters and how they react to their adventures.

The Magic Treehouse books always deliver. They're among my favorite youth readers. This series encourages imagination, while also taking children through historical periods and learning moments.

This is one is great for teaching children about this holiday and how it came to be. The accompanying fact book about Pilgrims is wonderful. This combo is phenomenal for teaching children about the early settlers, Native Americans, and life in the 1600s.

This is a great read for 1-4th. Jack and Annie go back in time to the very first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims. They help cook, almost burn the meal, and learn what the real holiday was like. Short chapters, easy words, perfect for kids who love history + magic adventures. A bit of a longer read so I would use this as a book we read as a class with every students following along.

Jack and Annie travel back to 1621 on the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims ask them to help prepare, but they don't know how to do things the Pilgrim way. They meet a Native American, Squanto, who helps them through their journey. I liked this book for two reasons. First, the illustrations helped enhance the story. Since this is a chapter book, there aren't pictures on every page. The pages that do have pictures often involve a key event or detail; this lets the reader know when there is a main idea and helps him/her better visualize it. Second, the characters are believable. When Jack and Annie meet the Pilgrims, there are clear differences in the way the Pilgrims speak. For instance, "'Good day!' the friendly-looking man said. 'Who show more art thou?'" The big idea is that you can do anything that you put your mind to. show less

Summary:In this book, Jack and Annie travel back to the first Thanksgiving in 1621. When they get to Plymouth, the children claim they came over on the Mayflower too, even though no one remembers them. However, Squanto, a Native America states that he remembers seeing them run through the town before. The woman who was questioning that seems to accept it and tells the children to hunt for eels, oysters, and fish. Although the children have never done this before, they still try to figure it out for themselves. Eventually, they meet a woman named Priscilla. Priscilla has the children help with the Thanksgiving feast and even though Jack ruined the turkey, she wasn’t mad because so many other pilgrims had so much food. The children were show more able to spend the day enjoying the food that they had helped prepare. During this time the Governor gave a speech about what they had to be thankful for, a good harvest even though they had a harsh winter.

Review: I thought this book was a great read, especially with helping children understand how Thanksgiving came to be. Therefore, I think the theme for this book is to inform people why we have Thanksgiving and how important it is to be thankful for what we have. The governor stated that they were feasting because they were thankful for a great harvest even though they had a harsh winter. He also explained how important it was for all of the different worlds, the pilgrims and Native Americans, to come together and to help each other out. Thus, I think this book teaches a lesson on how easy some of us may have it and that we have so much to be thankful for. I also think it gives others an insight on what the conditions were like back in the day and how even the children were expected to help gather and hunt for food. Overall, I thought this book was very informative and a fun way to look at history. show less

I think the recommended grade level would be grades 2-4.
This Magic Treehouse series is about siblings Jack and Annie who time travel in their magic treehouse to 1621 to the first ever Thanksgiving. They meet the pilgrims and Wampanoag tribe preparing for the feast together.
I think a cool activity that could be done with this book would be having my students research about a historical event and write a time traveling book about it.

I picked this book up expecting to feel brain cells dying as I read it. I was very wrong; I can see why my students enjoy this series so much. It's very well written (albeit extremely simplistic) and interesting. It was an extremely quick read and is educational, to boot!