An Outlaw Thanksgiving by Emily Arnold McCully

by Carol4 Comments
An Outlaw Thanksgiving by Emily Arnold McCully (Suggested reading level: Grades K-4) How would like to have shared Thanksgiving dinner with Butch Cassidy and his gang? Thrilled, scared, grateful? While this story is fiction, according to the author's note it's based on an actual Thanksgiving dinner that took place in 1886. In November 1886, Clara and her mother are heading west on the train to meet Papa in Utah and then head on to California. Their train gets snowed in and a nice man who they met on board offers to take them with him to Brown's Hole for a few days, until the train is dug out. He promises them a real Thanksgiving dinner with respectable ranchers. The feast is magnificent, but then Clara recognizes on of their hosts from a wanted poster- it's Butch Cassidy! She's brave enough to ask him if he's planning on robbing the train. "Well, a poster don't tell the whole story of a man," Butch said. "We've all...
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The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin by Stan and Jan Berenstain

by Carol4 Comments
The Berenstain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin by Stan and Jan Berenstain I have to admit that even though Amber has long outgrown them, I still enjoy a visit to Bear Country occasionally. Papa Bear has grown a big pumpkin and is entering it into the annual contest during Bear Country Thanksgiving Festival. Sadly it doesn't win, but the Bear family learns a lesson about the true spirit of the holiday and about all they have to be thankful for. Papa Bear acts like a kid himself a lot of the time, this time getting so wrapped up in winning and his pumpkin that he forgets about everything else. He even trespasses on a neighbor's farm to get at peak at "The Monster," a rival pumpkin. (Can pumpkins be rivals?) So the lesson learned is for him too, not just the cubs. It's cute and just what I expected from a Berenstain Bears story. Purchase at Amazon. Purchase at an Indie Bookstore. 32 pages First published...
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A Fatal Feast by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

by Carol7 Comments
A Fatal Feast by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain I was looking for a Thanksgivingy book and saw this at my library, so I had to pick it up. I remember watching the Murder, She Wrote series on TV back in the 80s or 90s, so I was familiar with the characters and setting. Yes, I was a mystery lover even then. Jessica Fletcher has a guest in town for Thanksgiving, her would-be beau George Sutherland, a Scotland Yard Investigator. I have to say that Jessica is more attractive and adventurous than I remember her, flying planes and flirting with men. Of course, maybe my memory has tamed her over the years. Anyway, Jessica is preparing a Thanksgiving feast and the list of people who are planning on being there keeps growing, including and odd drifter who has been hanging out in the road in front of her house and her new neighbors, an odd couple themselves. It's really no surprise, though, when...
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Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson

by Carol4 Comments
Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson, illustrated by Matt Faulkner (Suggested reading level: Ages 4-8) I hate to admit that I had no idea Sarah Hale was before reading this. She was a writer, a teacher, a publisher. She argued against slavery and fought for schools for girls. She was a "superhero," which is what Thanksgiving needed. People were forgetting about the holiday, but Sarah Hale believed that the whole country should celebrate it, together, and made it happen. Never underestimate dainty little ladies. This book, for me, celebrates the power of a woman and the power of writing. Sarah Hale wrote letter after letter, article after article and never gave up. Finally, in 1863, President Lincoln delared Thanksgiving a national holiday. I love reading books with Amber (9) that talk about real women who changed the world, in small and big ways. This story was a little young for her, but sometimes it's nice to just sit down and read a couple of...
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