This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story Paperback – Picture Book, September 2, 2003

Bought this for my 2.5 year old as her Thanksgiving book this year. Past years were Biscuit Gives Thanks and Five Silly Turkeys, both of which are great for tiny ones and LO still enjoys them. We also have Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks, which I also recommend.I like that this book gives room for lots of education and discussion: counting, respecting cultural differences, friendship, history, etc. Also, it has a rhythm and rhyme so I suppose older kids could get a literary technique lesson too:) I also like the illustrations, which are great superficially and then have so many hidden surprises too!I am sure my LO will enjoy its rhyming text and will have all kinds of questions about what everyone is doing. She will also enjoy hunting for the turkey and other animals hidden on each page.A fine book for the preschool set.Update: we got this when DD was 1yo. She is now 9. She still loves it when November rolls around and I pull out this book. There was one page where we had never been able to find the animals hidden in the picture. It had been driving us crazy! So this year we turned the book 90 degrees and success! We were both very excited!It’s a good book when it keeps your child’s interest from toddlerhood to fourth grade :). And her mama loves it too :)

I read this to my second grade music classes and had them play a drum pattern after every page. The rhyme scheme is catchy, and the pictures are ADORABLE and highly detailed. The children all loved this book and wanted to try to find all of the hidden details besides the turkey. On the 1 page, for example, there is one canadian goose and 1 racoon hiding in the background; the 2 page hides 2 mallards and 2 rabbits in the background, page 10 hides 10 rabbits... All of the pages contain a hidden turkey (sometimes live and sometimes roasted!). The pictures look just like Plymouth Plantation if you've been there, and they show people of both cultures working and helping and getting along. This book has become one of my favorites to share with children.

We have a huge collection of kids' books, and somehow I ended up with this one after Thanksgiving, so I shelved it with the holiday books for next year. It's now July, and for some reason my 3-1/2 yr old son selected this one to read last night. We loved it! The pictures are well done, the rhyme is fun, and the story is a good intro to the history of Thanksgiving. And anything that gets my son to enjoy learning/counting gets a gold star from me!

Gorgeous illustrations and well placed "hidden pictures" that go along with the counting text. This is a perfect selection for preschool through primary grades for the story of Thanksgiving. So glad I found this one!

We love this Thanksgiving book! It’s definitely one of our favorites. It has a cute counting story, isn’t cheesy, and has amazing illustrations. It also gives the kids some idea of what pilgrim life might have been like.

This book provides a nice addition to the library of Thanksgiving stories. It alternates typical day to day activities of Pilgrim and Native American children to give children perspective of life at that time on a Thanksgiving unit. The language is rich and the pictures are lovely. I used it with my beginning ESL adult class and some of the language was too high for them, but American speaking children would not have trouble with it. Lovely pictures.

Will go in our holiday box for Thanksgiving. We always start reading books about the upcoming holiday a week before the actual day. It is fun to learn and read together.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fun this book is. On each page is a hidden turkey and bunnies to find. The illustrations are fantastic.

J'ai acheté ce livre en pensant pouvoir l'utiliser avec mes petits 6ème en cours d'anglais...mais c'est vraiment un livre pour les tout petits. Je l'ai quand même gardé pour peut-être utiliser les illustrations...

My ESL kids had trouble following the book because of the language that is used. I like that it counts things because numbers are always a good thing to review.