{"id":299,"date":"2014-11-25T17:17:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-26T01:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/?p=299"},"modified":"2021-01-28T17:52:48","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T01:52:48","slug":"giving-thanks-for-belt-buckle-hats-6-books-about-pilgrims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/2014\/giving-thanks-for-belt-buckle-hats-6-books-about-pilgrims\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Thanks for Belt Buckle Hats: 6 Books about Pilgrims"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mayflower<\/a>
Photo courtesy Hugh Llewelyn<\/a> from Flickr under CC License<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanksgiving, that all-American holiday, is fast approaching and to help you get in the mood and brush up on some early American history, we’ve compiled a list of six books about those\u00a0earliest European settlers of North America, and perennial Thanksgiving favorites, the Pilgrims. With some history, memoir, and fiction, there’s a little something here for everyone, but hopefully all of these titles will spark some Thanksgiving inspiration so that we can celebrate the survival of the Puritans in the New World by going all out in a huge holiday celebration, of which the Puritans themselves, finding large celebrations sinful, would heartily disapprove.<\/p>\n

\"Caleb'sCaleb’s Crossing<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Geraldine Brooks<\/p>\n

Bethia Mayfield is a young girl growing up in the Puritan settlement of Great Harbor. Curious and intelligent, she wants terribly\u00a0to gain more schooling than is open to women at the time. In her desperate desire for some kind of independence she often slips away from her tasks to wander the wild beaches of Martha’s Vineyard and watch people from the\u00a0native Wampanoag tribe. At the age of twelve she forges an unlikely friendship with Caleb, the son of the local tribe’s chieftain. Remaining friends in secret, they teach each other about their respective worlds and beliefs, but their friendship is tested when Bethia’s minister father makes it his mission to convert Caleb, earning the wrath of the tribe’s shaman. Her\u00a0father does not give up easily however and begins to educate Caleb, who is eventually accepted into Harvard and goes to study there. From her new position as an indentured housekeeper in Cambridge, Bethia watches Caleb as he tries to straddle both worlds and cultures.<\/p>\n

\"MakingMaking Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World<\/em> <\/strong><\/a>by Nick Bunker<\/p>\n

When a green comet blazed across the sky in 1618, it struck fear in the hearts of people all over the world\u00a0and added to an atmosphere of political and social unrest in the United Kingdom. When the Pilgrims boarded\u00a0the Mayflower and set off for the New World two years later, that air of tension remained and it was to escape this charged situation\u00a0and the economic depression in their homeland that they conceived of their voyage across the Atlantic. In Making Haste from Babylon<\/em>, Bunker delves into the background of this first Puritan expedition and follows the passengers of the Mayflower across the sea and through the first ten years of their new lives in America. He charts the progress of the\u00a0Pilgrims from religious persecution in England to their establishment of a permanent threshold in America, driven\u00a0by their entrepreneurial, revolutionary, and idealistic\u00a0spirits.<\/p>\n

\"AmericanAmerican Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Eve LaPlante<\/p>\n

In an era where women could not vote, hold public office, or even teach outside the home, Anne Hutchinson became\u00a0a public figure who wielded considerable political power. A wife and mother in the Puritan community who bore sixteen children, Anne dared to suggest that no intermediary was needed to communicate with God, and her theological and political teachings combined with her\u00a0charisma drew in many supporters. Her\u00a0ideas were well outside the acceptable mold for the Puritan leaders of her community however and she was tried for behaving in a manner unseemly for her gender. The outcome of this trial was both her banishment from Massachusetts, which she left to found Rhode Island and the beginning\u00a0of Harvard College, which the Puritans of Massachusetts created in order to systematically educate youth into their teachings. American Jezebel<\/em> takes an in-depth look at the life of Anne Hutchinson and the effect that she had on her surrounding culture.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Pilgrim<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Hugh Nissenson<\/p>\n

Charles Wentworth decides to leave his home in England for a new start in the New World\u00a0in 1622 after\u00a0his fiancee dies and he is lost and heartbroken without her. He is\u00a0constantly at war within himself, tormented by sinful desires and unable to feel sure of God’s love for him. His Puritan ideals demand a complete faith in God that he can no longer feel and he also cannot bring himself turn away from his worldly wants. Through the fictional story of Charles’ journey to the New World, Nissenson explores the life and faith of the passionate and idealistic people who came to America in search of freedom and redemption.<\/p>\n

\"MayflowerMayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Nathaniel Philbrick<\/p>\n

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Mayflower<\/em> tells the in-depth story of the first sixty years of the settlement of the New World by the Pilgrims from the Mayflower. Philbrick uses first-person accounts as well as historical records to recreate the lives and events of the first European settlers of America covering\u00a0the episodes\u00a0leading up to\u00a0and the \u00a0journey on the Mayflower, the strategies for survival from the first hard years, as well as King Phillip’s War and its aftermath. Mayflower<\/em> has a good balance of anecdotes and first-person accounts and individual narratives all used to bring alive the events that comprised the beginning of a nation.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Wordy Shipmates<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Sarah Vowell<\/p>\n

Sarah Vowell brings her trademark wit and humor to the subject of the Puritans and their influence on current day America. She\u00a0simultaneously delves into the historical facts of life for the Pilgrims coming to America in the 17th century and looks at the way that their values and beliefs have influenced American culture over time. Using historical and biographical information of historical figures as well as personal anecdotes and social commentary, Vowell creates an interesting portrait both of\u00a0the first European settlers of the United States and their links to the current culture of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving, that all-American holiday, is fast approaching and to help you get in the mood and brush up on some early American history, we’ve compiled a list of six books […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"Layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[23,14,19,31,18,51,50],"class_list":["entry","author-","post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-book-lists","tag-biography","tag-book-list","tag-fiction","tag-historical-fiction","tag-history","tag-pilgrims","tag-thanksgiving"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p71KTL-4P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/2334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}