Thanksgiving on Thursday

Thanksgiving on Thursday is Mary Pope Osborne's trip to the year 1621 for 7 year olds, and it's a warmer, slower Magic Tree House than most.

What happens

Jack and Annie are on the third of four journeys to find a special kind of magic. Morgan leaves them a rhyme about gathering together and turning three worlds into one, plus a book with a basket of corn on the cover. They land in an oak at the edge of a wood, dressed as Pilgrims, and Jack's hat makes Annie laugh.

Then a dog barks. Jack steps in a hunting trap. And he ends up hanging upside down by one ankle in front of the entire colony.

That is how they meet Governor Bradford, Captain Standish, a young woman called Priscilla, and Squanto. Chief Massasoit turns up with ninety men, there is not enough food for everybody, and all the children are given jobs.

Jack and Annie get eels and clams.

This is the part I think British children will enjoy most, because it is mostly two modern kids being hopeless. Jack squishes an eel out of the wet sand with his bare feet, grabs it, and drops it straight away. Annie decides they cannot take clams at all, on the grounds that clams can live to be a hundred. They come back with an empty basket and are handed a pumpkin out of kindness.

Then Jack knocks the turkey into the fire and burns it black.

What happens next is why this one stays with you. Priscilla does not tell him off. She walks him outside and shows him every other table in the village, loaded. Then she kneels down and says he did not ruin anything, because he made her laugh and he was kind, and she has not laughed in a long time. Her eyes are sad and her face is weary, and the book never quite explains why. At this age that feels about right.

Two things you might want to know as a British parent. This is an American holiday told the warm schoolbook way, so your reader may need a sentence from you about what Thanksgiving actually is. And near the end Squanto explains, plainly and briefly, that men came in ships and took him away to Europe as a slave, and that being a stranger in a strange place is why he helped two frightened children. It is the best thing in the book, and it is quite a lot to arrive at bedtime.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, the journey just before it is on the shelf here as well. Good Morning Gorillas drops Jack and Annie into an African rain forest hunting the magic of animals, with Annie making friends with the gorillas within about a minute and Jack thoroughly left out.