The Pilgrims of Plimoth (Aladdin Picture Books) - Softcover

Sewall, Marcia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0689808615 ISBN 13: 9780689808616

Publisher: Aladdin, 1996

Synopsis

In a text that mirrors their language and thoughts, Marcia Sewall has masterfully recreated the coming of the pilgrims to the New World, and the daily flow of their days during the first years in the colony they called Plimoth.

Aye, Governor Bradford calls us pilgrims. We are English and England was our home...But our lives were ruled by King James, and for many years it seemed as though our very hearts were in prison in England...
September, 1620, our lives changed. We were seventy menfolk and womenfolk, thirty-two good children, a handful of cocks and hens, and two dogs, gathered together on a dock in Plymouth, England, ready to set sail for America in a small ship called the Mayflower...

After an abundance of prayers and tears we made farewells at dockside and boarded our small ship. Our voyage across the Atlantic Ocean "began with a prosperous wind," but the sea soon became "sharp and violent" and storms howled about us.

When the pilgrims set out for America, they brought with them a dream for the future. Sickness, hardship, and heartache stood in the way of that dream. But the pilgrims worked hard, keeping their dream close to their hearts, until they were finally able to make it come true.

About this title

About the Author:

Marcia Sewall's children's books have been among the New York Times Best Illustrated, the ALA Notables, and School Library Journal and Booklist best books of the year. Her illustrations have been selected for exhibition by the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Bratislava International Biennale. She is a lifelong resident of New England.

Marcia Sewall's children's books have been among the New York Times Best Illustrated, the ALA Notables, and School Library Journal and Booklist best books of the year. Her illustrations have been selected for exhibition by the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Bratislava International Biennale. She is a lifelong resident of New England.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 2 Up Written as a personal account, Sewall's book not only conveys the spirit and conviction of the Pilgrim experience, but also provides a bounty of historical information and domestic detail about the settlement at Plimoth and the people who survived those arduous first seasons in America. Sewall's extensive research is evident in her text and in the rich, simple oil paintings that reveal so much about the Pilgrims. Her illustrations, somewhat reflective of the American primitive style in the use of flat, thick strokes, are never static. Every scene is charged with energy and movement, depicting the flow of human exchange and relationships. Sewall also makes effective use of double-page space, creating wide-angle scenes, as in a bleak view of winter seen as through a screen of snow, or the overview of the Thanksgiving celebration. By adhering to traditional language and vocabulary (for which there is a glossary at the back), Sewall has captured the dignity of the Pilgrim voice, and lends a quiet, steady rhythm and intensity to the text as the collective "we" is repeated over and over, becoming a litany of events, customs, practices, and beliefs. Sewall's book is educational in the best sense: it is eloquent, evocative, factual, and lovely to behold. This is not a text for very young children (Alice Dalgliesh's The Thanksgiving Story Atheneum, 1954, also from a personal perspective, is more suitable), but even prereaders will respond to the stories so fully developed in these pictures. Susan Powers, Berkeley Carroll Street School, Brooklyn
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0689808615
• ISBN 13: 9780689808616
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Sewall Marcia