lisamcdreads's review against another edition
5.0
This is a must read for all American students! It tells the true story of the first Thanksgiving which was not as depicted for the last several hundred years by mainstream education. I will definitely be adding this to my library and encouraging teachers to use this tool every year, and not just in November. Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this eARC.
avafritsch's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
4.5
Super fun read! Love the excerpts throughout the book. There were real pictures, cartoon pictures, official text followed by translations and comic strips. I plan to use this in November for my middle school class reading.
thedoctorsaysrun's review against another edition
5.0
A great book for middle graders (and for adults for that matter) that not only tells the real story of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims (Separatists), but also teaches in an accessible way how to fact check, what primary resources are and why they are important to history and understanding history, and to be skeptical of the mythology we are taught about history.
readaloud_mom's review against another edition
challenging
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.5
I have such mixed feelings about this book!
Tl;dr: This book is a better start on American history than the books of my childhood, and some of the fun how-to-evaluate-a-primary-source-for-bias stuff in here really is gold.
However, at the very least, this book desperately needs to be supplemented with Indigenous #OwnVoices. Messner is clearly trying to Do Better, but I think still didn't dig deep enough into her own biases. I guess probably I can use this text as a jumping-off-point to talk about evaluating secondary and tertiary sources for biases, too?
Long Version of the Mixed Feelings :
As far as I can tell, this book is carefully avoiding/actively refuting a lot of the familiar overt Thanksgiving racism (it certainly doesn't gloss over primary sources showing Pilgrims as corn-stealing, grave-robbing, slave-taking land-grabbers), but I strongly suspect that there are still plenty of more covert problems here.
I'm somewhat uneasy about some of the cartoon renditions of Samoset, Tisquantum, Metacom, and others, even though I can't quite put my finger on why; the cartoons are very much depicting these men as individuals and there aren't any feather-headdress howlers that I can see. The book even points out some Sioux clothing in a famous 1914 painting as part of a "what's wrong with this picture" section, though unfortunately, you can't really see that detail or most of the others, because pretty much all of the black-and-white paintings and photos in this book have been printed too dark/smudgy, leaving Meconis's (generally excellent!) cartoons to do all the heavy lifting as far as illustrations go.
I do think that History Smashers is in dialogue with popular books like Mary Pope Osborne's Thanksgiving on Thursday in some important ways; I'm glad that it has an entire chapter about how wrong the Thanksgiving myths are/why not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, including an extensive quote from Wamsutta Frank James's speech on the first National Day of Mourning. I like that the book tries to point out in various ways that the Wampanoag were here first and that they are still here...
...But then there are the many confusing passages where I feel like the author is (accidentally?) going down the Noble Disappearing Savage route while also paying lip-service to the Still Here message. A typical example from page 103: "Some of this rich culture was lost for a long time because of colonization, but through the years, Wampanoag people have worked to keep their traditions alive."
So, I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, cultures don't just get misplaced for a few centuries and then eventually turn up under the couch cushions, so what exactly does Messner mean by "lost" here? (Like, what, do cultures stop existing if White people forget they're there?) And is "traditions" really the right word to sum up what the Wampanoag people have worked to keep? The remainder of this chapter briefly touches on Wampanoag activists Zerviah Gould Mitchell (of the 1800s) and Jessie Little Doe Baird (of the present day). Basketmaking gets mentioned (along with that word "tradition" again). In addition to basketmaking, a legal battle to get paid for timber taken from Wampanoag land is mentioned, and then there are several interesting pages about modern language revitalization. But yeah, you know a word that I don't see in this section? "Sovereignty".
Ah, look, while I was verifying that quote, I found another example of this fuzziness on page 101: "Community has always been important to the Wampanoag people. In the days of the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag people were citizens who had their own form of government." ...OK, yes, it's great that we're talking about how the Wampanoag already had a government when the Pilgrims arrived? It's very true that they were not just wandering around in anarchy or something? But not only are the Wampanoag "still here", THEY ARE STILL CITIZENS WITH THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS RIGHT NOW, IN THESE DAYS WE ARE LIVING IN. Excuse my all-caps, but I think this is really important! And I'm disappointed that Messner implied in that sentence that Wampanoag citizenship was a past-tense days-of-the-Pilgrims kind of thing. It's lazy writing, at best. AT BEST. In the back of the book, two official Wampanoag websites are listed as resources to learn more, so hopefully at least some readers will follow up and learn about some present-day Wampanoag governments and 400 years of fighting to maintain treaty rights and hold onto their land. I wish that Messner herself had clicked those links and then really thought through what she saw there.
Edited to add: Also, you know what my family says happened to our Gaelic? It was stolen from us. Not "lost". Stolen. And that isn't even getting into things like the infamous Carlisle Indian School! Yes, the section on modern language revitalization briefly acknowledges that children got taken from their families, etc. It's a book for kids, and it is so incredibly cool that the Wampanoag have resurrected a spoken language, and it makes sense that's where Messner puts the focus. And yet: "...rich culture was lost for a long time because of colonization" sounds soooo passive, given how much the rest of that chapter is talking about a language that was actively suppressed by colonizers. Who lost it? Where did it go? It's a mystery! Oh, wait, no. We do actually know what happened.
So anyway, this is just some what I'm seeing as a random White woman who doesn't know much about the Wampanoag, and was in fact quite interested to learn about the existence of Zerviah Gould Mitchell and Jessie Little Doe Baird! I am sure that I am missing problematic stuff, and that Indigenous readers could produce MUCH more nuanced critiques than mine. But that's what I've got.
Tl;dr: This book is a better start on American history than the books of my childhood, and some of the fun how-to-evaluate-a-primary-source-for-bias stuff in here really is gold.
However, at the very least, this book desperately needs to be supplemented with Indigenous #OwnVoices. Messner is clearly trying to Do Better, but I think still didn't dig deep enough into her own biases. I guess probably I can use this text as a jumping-off-point to talk about evaluating secondary and tertiary sources for biases, too?
Long Version of the Mixed Feelings :
Spoiler
I think this book is definitely imagining a White child as the audience, just for starters. On the other hand, my own White child LOVES it and has truly learned a lot - ranging from some fun, off-beat details to a valuable understanding of what a primary source is (and is not). This book spends a lot of time demonstrating how to evaluate primary sources for bias! It has my child asking questions and wanting to learn more about history! This is all awesome!As far as I can tell, this book is carefully avoiding/actively refuting a lot of the familiar overt Thanksgiving racism (it certainly doesn't gloss over primary sources showing Pilgrims as corn-stealing, grave-robbing, slave-taking land-grabbers), but I strongly suspect that there are still plenty of more covert problems here.
I'm somewhat uneasy about some of the cartoon renditions of Samoset, Tisquantum, Metacom, and others, even though I can't quite put my finger on why; the cartoons are very much depicting these men as individuals and there aren't any feather-headdress howlers that I can see. The book even points out some Sioux clothing in a famous 1914 painting as part of a "what's wrong with this picture" section, though unfortunately, you can't really see that detail or most of the others, because pretty much all of the black-and-white paintings and photos in this book have been printed too dark/smudgy, leaving Meconis's (generally excellent!) cartoons to do all the heavy lifting as far as illustrations go.
I do think that History Smashers is in dialogue with popular books like Mary Pope Osborne's Thanksgiving on Thursday in some important ways; I'm glad that it has an entire chapter about how wrong the Thanksgiving myths are/why not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving, including an extensive quote from Wamsutta Frank James's speech on the first National Day of Mourning. I like that the book tries to point out in various ways that the Wampanoag were here first and that they are still here...
...But then there are the many confusing passages where I feel like the author is (accidentally?) going down the Noble Disappearing Savage route while also paying lip-service to the Still Here message. A typical example from page 103: "Some of this rich culture was lost for a long time because of colonization, but through the years, Wampanoag people have worked to keep their traditions alive."
So, I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, cultures don't just get misplaced for a few centuries and then eventually turn up under the couch cushions, so what exactly does Messner mean by "lost" here? (Like, what, do cultures stop existing if White people forget they're there?) And is "traditions" really the right word to sum up what the Wampanoag people have worked to keep? The remainder of this chapter briefly touches on Wampanoag activists Zerviah Gould Mitchell (of the 1800s) and Jessie Little Doe Baird (of the present day). Basketmaking gets mentioned (along with that word "tradition" again). In addition to basketmaking, a legal battle to get paid for timber taken from Wampanoag land is mentioned, and then there are several interesting pages about modern language revitalization. But yeah, you know a word that I don't see in this section? "Sovereignty".
Ah, look, while I was verifying that quote, I found another example of this fuzziness on page 101: "Community has always been important to the Wampanoag people. In the days of the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag people were citizens who had their own form of government." ...OK, yes, it's great that we're talking about how the Wampanoag already had a government when the Pilgrims arrived? It's very true that they were not just wandering around in anarchy or something? But not only are the Wampanoag "still here", THEY ARE STILL CITIZENS WITH THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS RIGHT NOW, IN THESE DAYS WE ARE LIVING IN. Excuse my all-caps, but I think this is really important! And I'm disappointed that Messner implied in that sentence that Wampanoag citizenship was a past-tense days-of-the-Pilgrims kind of thing. It's lazy writing, at best. AT BEST. In the back of the book, two official Wampanoag websites are listed as resources to learn more, so hopefully at least some readers will follow up and learn about some present-day Wampanoag governments and 400 years of fighting to maintain treaty rights and hold onto their land. I wish that Messner herself had clicked those links and then really thought through what she saw there.
Edited to add: Also, you know what my family says happened to our Gaelic? It was stolen from us. Not "lost". Stolen. And that isn't even getting into things like the infamous Carlisle Indian School! Yes, the section on modern language revitalization briefly acknowledges that children got taken from their families, etc. It's a book for kids, and it is so incredibly cool that the Wampanoag have resurrected a spoken language, and it makes sense that's where Messner puts the focus. And yet: "...rich culture was lost for a long time because of colonization" sounds soooo passive, given how much the rest of that chapter is talking about a language that was actively suppressed by colonizers. Who lost it? Where did it go? It's a mystery! Oh, wait, no. We do actually know what happened.
So anyway, this is just some what I'm seeing as a random White woman who doesn't know much about the Wampanoag, and was in fact quite interested to learn about the existence of Zerviah Gould Mitchell and Jessie Little Doe Baird! I am sure that I am missing problematic stuff, and that Indigenous readers could produce MUCH more nuanced critiques than mine. But that's what I've got.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Colonisation and Racism
andeez's review against another edition
5.0
I'm obsessed with Kate Messner's History Smashers series. So many facts we don't get in every day classes all wrapped up in a fun, easy to read, illustrated with graphic novel pages, and attention grabbing fonts. Every classroom should have the series and really, every elementary/middle school household, as well.
The Mayflower wasn't about getting on the boat from England to America and having turkey and pumpkin pie with the welcoming Wampanoag tribe. The true drama was full of conflict, death, detours, and more death. Was Thanksgiving celebrated since the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock (which, actually, they didn't). Nope! Learn about the plea to take off on the 4th November Thursday and why it's a mourning day for the native people of this land.
Recommended for all ages: read aloud to those who can't and learn what you didn't learn in school.
The Mayflower wasn't about getting on the boat from England to America and having turkey and pumpkin pie with the welcoming Wampanoag tribe. The true drama was full of conflict, death, detours, and more death. Was Thanksgiving celebrated since the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock (which, actually, they didn't). Nope! Learn about the plea to take off on the 4th November Thursday and why it's a mourning day for the native people of this land.
Recommended for all ages: read aloud to those who can't and learn what you didn't learn in school.
jmwilson's review against another edition
4.0
What really happened when the pilgrims hopped on a boat and landed in America? If you read this book, you will uncover the truths about The Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving. This history smashing book features graphic panels, illustrations, and photographs to hold the interest of younger readers. I cannot wait to buy several copies of this book for teachers and students. It can be read anytime of the year especially when we teach primary sources.
emilymyhren's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.75