Wednesday, November 26, 2008

In honor of Thanksgiving...

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and across the county, elementary schools have been having children draw pilgrim's hat and tutkeys. In honor of the full story, Historybusters would like to recommend the following:

Although the characters in this History Channel recreation are a bit one dimensional, Desperate Crossing is an effective and entertaining depiction of the journey of the pilgrims, their settlement at Plymouth, and the first Thanksgiving. I did not care for the one sided and overly simplified view of King James, or the politics that first made the Pilgrims flee England. Nor did I care for their cliff note explanation of why the people of the Netherlands developed tolerance. However, they handled the crossing well, and did a find job explaining some of the reasons the Pilgrims were able to develop good relations with the indigenous peoples about to become their new neighbors. I particularly liked their depiction of Squanto and how important he was to the colony’s survival. All in all, I can recommend it for any young person studying the first Thanksgiving. It is very family friendly, and if you happen to have the History Channel, you might want to keep your eye out for it this Thursday with your VCR ready.

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