Why not start teaching the young children in your sphere of influence about the beginnings of the American Thanksgiving tradition early? A good tool for doing that is a little board book called The Story of Thanksgiving. The author, Nancy J. Skarmeas, uses simple language designed for children ages 2 to 4. The artwork by Stacy Venturi-Pickett is colorful and striking.

When I first browsed through the book, I thought the illustrator was taking artistic license by making the clothing of the Pilgrims colorful, perhaps to be more appealing to children. But according to an article about “Mayflower Myths” on the history.com website, women usually wore red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray. It states that men normally dressed in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown. An article about clothing on the mayflowerhistory.com website tells us that information about colors worn can be obtained from records of the wills of Pilgrims, listing their belongings when they died. Elder Brewster possessed green pants, a red cap, a violet coat, and a blue suit. The “Mayflower Myths” article says that black and white were usually worn on Sundays and for formal events and that buckles did not become a popular English fashion until later in the 17th century.

The Story of Thanksgiving board book covers why the Pilgrims left England, their voyage on the Mayflower and their landing at Plymouth, the cold winter, the planting of crops, help from Squanto and other Native Americans, the feast, and three simple things for which we can thank God on Thanksgiving Day.

I found that there is an older version of the book with a little different format, but with basically the same text and illustrations. The newer version is apparently a more convenient size for toddlers.

To quickly find out where you can get the book in time for Thanksgiving, be sure to enter the author’s name after the title when you put it in your search engine. Here it is at christianbook.com. Perhaps your local Christian bookstore will have it. Supporting Christian bookstores, where you can see books in person, is always good, whenever possible.