Just as the passing of Reformation Day doesn’t signal the end of our need to study the Reformation, we shouldn’t think that since Thanksgiving is past we don’t need to study the Puritans any more for the next 11 months. The way they read and applied scripture, and their belief in God‘s intimate involvement in their everyday lives, are things we’d do well to study.

They are truly a people for all seasons.

(Okay, you’re probably realizing that I have a thing for the Pilgrims.  I do. I love their courage, their resolve, their reverence for God…  I love to read their writings.  As the spiritual ancestors of all of us who are Americans, they are an important part of our history, and it’s amazing to think that they are in the great cloud of witnesses watching what has become of this country they invested in at so great a price.  What must they be thinking?)

If you want to read more about the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Pilgrims here are a few more books for young readers that I recommend:

Squanto – Friend of the Pilgrims, Clyde Robert Bulla, 1954

Stories of the Pilgrims, Margaret B. Pumphrey (There are several reprintings.)

If You Were at the First Thanksgiving, Anne Kamma, 2001 (Out of print and expensive for a Scholastic paperback! The price used copies are selling for makes me wonder if they’ll reprint it some day.  Maybe your public library has it.)

N. C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims, Robert D. Sans Souci, The illustrations are beautiful even if they are not absolutely authentic. You can see many of them  online.