Though Thanksgiving is a week past and even those delicious leftover sandwiches are now a fading memory, I wanted to share a wonderful Thanksgiving story as part of our continuing “developmental book swap.” In searching for books that as accurately as possible tell something about the “first” Thanksgiving in New England, some from the vantage point of the Native Americans who share the feast with the Pilgrim people, I reconnected with a wonderful Scholastic picture book published in 1999, first imprinted by Atheneum Books for Young Readers: Nickommoh!: A Thanksgiving Celebration by Jackie French Koller, illustrated by Marcia Sewall.

The thirty-page paperback, written at about a fourth-grade level, is interspersed with some twenty words drawn from the Narragansett language of Native Americans whose ancestral home is present-day Rhode Island. These words and other concepts presented in the book give credence to the fact that Native American peoples celebrated rites of thanksgiving that were both religious and social in nature long before the coming of Europeans to America. Nickommoh is the name the Narragansett people gave to these celebrations, which were held thirteen times a year, at each full moon. The word nickommoh means “give away” or “exchange.” People would give away their extra food, furs, and clothing to the sachem, or leader, of the tribe, who would then redistribute the goods to widows, orphans, and other needy people.

The book is a fun and interesting piece of nonfiction for the whole family or any classroom from grades 1 through 6 (read aloud to grades 1 through 3). All the Narragansett words in italics throughout the text are referenced at the back of the book, so students in grades 4 through 6 can do some practical glossary work.

The book is out of print, but you can find lots of affordable used copies from Amazon and other such sources. It’s worth purchasing this treasure now and squirreling it away ’til next November!