A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have bothered to review this. I might have picked it up off of the kids' reading stack, paged through it, maybe even enjoyed it, but then would put it down without further ado. These days, however, since I'm reading all sorts of kids' books and posting my reviews on GoodReads, I'm more inclined to put in my two-cents worth. Anyway, this is a nice little illustrated book that gives kids a peek into what life might have been like for a Pilgrim boy or girl aboard the Mayflower and later in the Plymouth colony. It gives a good overview of the time, mentioning the hardships and personal conflicts as well as the triumphs of The Mayflower Compact and the first Thanksgiving celebration. It helps make this bit of history come alive and is worth checking out if you have young'uns who need to study their history.

This is a good book to give kids a brief look at what life was really like for the pilgrims!

This book is full of wonderful, useful, interesting questions and answers and even pictures for the younger ones to look at. We are studying early American history this year in my homeschool. I am reading older "textbooks" to my 2 older elementary children but decided to read this one to my 8 year old / 3rd grader who has a much shorter attention span. I was impressed with how well this book summarized all that we learned (from other books) about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims first year in the New World. It does so in a clear, easily understood and entertaining way. I read this whole book (80 pages with pictures) in 3 days to my 8 year old son who loved it!

This would be a wonderful book to read the week of Thanksgiving as a reminder of our early beginnings and what the first Thanksgiving really was!!

This was really interesting. I learned facts I had never heard before. The kids liked it, too.

A very well illustrated book that helps to introduce the Mayflower to students. It is a fun way to lead into this topic area and it allows students to visualize what they are learning about. This book is very informational and perfect for the upper elementary classroom.

Informative but I would like something less... propagandist? I think we could use stories to help lead discussions about equality or the bad consequences of colonialism/ slavery...

This is a good book to teach children about what the Mayflower was and how it impacted the history of our country. It would be fun to read around Thanksgiving or at any time of the year. The colorful pictures along with the question answer style would make it very interactive for children as they learned about this topic.

This book presents the journey of the pilgrims to the New World in a manner that matched their condition, unwashed. They spent over 60 days in tight quarters eating poor food and wearing the same clothes. The only water available for washing was sea water and since they were traveling in the North Atlantic late in the year, the water would have been very cold.
The most significant point made concerns the Native Americans that they encountered when they arrived. Often lost in the historical accounts is the fact that were it not for the aid of the inhabitants, the colony that was the forerunner of their near extinction could not have survived without the help of the Native Americans, specifically Squanto and Chief Massasoit. The Native Americans taught the colonists how to grow the native crops and hunt the abundant game. Furthermore, the Native Americans did not hunt the colonists to extinction, something they could easily have done.
A quality rendition of the difficulties encountered by the migratory group we now call the Pilgrims; this book is a worthy addition to all libraries at the elementary school level.

Very good format- each page contains a question followed by a well-written answer in paragraph form, with language that is easy for elementary kids to understand. Each question also includes a colorful and relevant illustration which enhances comprehension.

This gets an "amazing" because my kids were on the edge of the couch listening to this. They spent three nights in a row talking to their dad about it at dinner and it still comes up every now and then. Even the 5-yr-old enjoyed it and has been able to talk about it.

This is just a brief overview of the Pilgrims. It covers a bit while in England/Holland then more on the Mayflower itself and then the New World. It took us 3 days to read it. It covers "all the basics" you'd need to know. It doesn't hide the fact that it was hard, that people got sick and that they died. But it also doesn't dwell on it. Using actual names and a brief tidbit about them here and there made it seem much more personal.

The illustrations are lovely. I thought the question/answer format would irritate me, but it worked well here.

This would be all you'd need for the younger grades, but around 3rd grade or so you would want to add a few other books for depth.

I don't know if my boys will ever forget the Billington boys who lit a piece of rope while standing by the gunpowder kegs on board the ship. Or the punishment of tying someone's head to their feet (they actually want us to try that one!). And they're looking forward to their Pilgrim meal with real eels - or as one of them suggested, a cake made to look like an eel.

Great book for kids . . .

This book had much information about the Pilgrims that we personally did not know. It is delightful way to teach your children about the lives and hardships experienced by those who traveled on the Mayflower.

just plain awful!