11 Fantastic Thanksgiving Picture Books
As Halloween drew to a close, I started getting flooded with requests for Thanksgiving books.
I compiled this list of Thanksgiving books several years ago but have updated it this year. I’ve taken some of the Thanksgiving books that previously appeared on this list off (ones that inaccurately depict the events of 1621 or are very one-sided) and added several that are more inclusive of Native voices.
I’ve been doing a ton of reading and research on this topic and feel hugely inadequate to even begin to address this, but if you’re interested in Native perspectives on Thanksgiving, Oyate is a really great resource.
American Indians in Children’s Literature is also a fantastic site that is a wealth of information about books for children that depict Native Peoples and recommends or doesn’t recommend many titles (and helps you understand why some books are problematic and why others are worth reading with your children or students).
I have as much to learn about this topic as anyone and it’s a work in progress for me to become better informed and more aware of the myths and stereotypes that surround this holiday (which is a day of mourning for many Native people).
These eleven Thanksgiving books for kids celebrate Native voices, gratitude, the changing seasons, and gathering with friends and family for a feast.
If you know of other great Thanksgiving books, I’d love to hear!
My favorite Thanksgiving books
Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet
This is, hands down, my favorite Thanksgiving picture book (so much so that I wrote an entire post about it, which I rarely do about picture books). Melissa Sweet’s illustrations always blow me away, plus in this book, you get to see her amazing research and writing chops too. The Macy’s Parade is a Thanksgiving staple, but I had no idea how it got started, and this book made watching it even more fun.
This book does a great job giving context for the first Thanksgiving feast and how the interactions between the European settlers and the Native Americans were sometimes peaceful and collaborative and other times violent and hostile. The illustration are beautiful in this one too – I bought a copy for my collection this year!
If you’re looking for a gorgeous picture book, the kind you’ll have as a display all season long, this is the one. Makes me almost love the idea of living somewhere with snow (except, you know, not really).
This gorgeous book, which garnered an impressive list of awards when it came out last year, focuses on the word “otsaliheliga” which is a Cherokee word that means gratitude and how the Cherokee Nation celebrates a year, starting in the fall when a new year begins.
I love this cute little story about a mouse who goes to get a single pea from the leftover Thanksgiving feast, but then he starts getting more and more things, leaving him ill-prepared to run when the cat makes an appearance.
Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano, illustrated by Lee Harper
This one is more than 10 years old but we read it for the first time last year and my girls thought it was HILARIOUS as the turkey tries to avoid detection by disguising himself as other farm animals in an attempt to NOT be the main dish.
Sarah Hale worried that Thanksgiving Day was dying out and she made it her personal mission to make it a national holiday. She spent 38 years writing letters to five U.S. presidents in a row, attempting to convince them, but she didn’t succeed until Abraham Lincoln finally responded to her letters during the Civil War. This book is one of those magical biographies that is well-written, interesting, and even funny. (Sarah Gives Thanks is another excellent biography about Sarah Hale).
This book is more than 20 years old, but does a beautiful job sharing the Thanksgiving Address that the Iroquois use in an annual ceremony giving thanks.
This little board book has been a favorite Thanksgiving book at our house for the past few years – we actually own two copies! It’s just a sweet little love note to babies that smell like cinnamon and spice and are just as delicious as a good slice of pumpkin pie.
This was our VERY favorite Thanksgiving book last year and my 3 year old asked for it on repeat for weeks. It’s such a sweet story of a modern Native American family and what Fry Bread means to them and their history.
And if you’d like a printable copy of this Thanksgiving book list that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below and it’ll come right to your inbox!
Any Thanksgiving picture books to recommend? I’d love to add to my collection, which is nowhere near as good as my Halloween or Christmas collection.
One of our friends has just written a new book, encouraging family philanthropy, called Thanks-for-Giving Day.
Sometimes It’s Turkey, Sometimes It’s Feathers by Lorna Balian — it’s an old one, but my all-time favorite!!
I’ll have to check out some of these we haven’t read yet! I just spotted a brand new Over the River… edition illustrated by Emma Randall that looks great…I’ve been meaning to pick a favorite to add to our collection and that one may be it 🙂
Thanks for the recommendations! I got all four of our Thanksgiving books out and now I have more to add to our collection.
Molly’s Pilgrim.
These look great. We love Balloons Over Broadway. Have you read The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell? My daughters (now 2 and 5) really love this one. It might be quirky for some, but there’s something about the illustrations and the sweet story – seems to really captivate them!
Aww what about Thanksgiving in the Woods?!
I completely agree about the lack of Thanksgiving picture books but my most favorite is “A Turkey for Thanksgiving” by Eve Bunting. The illustrations are wonderful and the story is cute- it never feels like Thanksgiving to me until I’ve read it!
Mousekins Thanksgiving (and all mousekin books for that matter!), Sometimes it’s Turkey, Sometimes it’s Feathers, Cranberry Thanksgiving, A Turkey for Thanksgiving. I know there are more, I just can’t think of titles!
Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson!
The only one I really love is Over the River…
I did find another version of that last year that was fun, a more modern one, by Linda Ashman. I also like Sharing the Bread: an old fashioned thanksgiving story
There are a few good books about gratitude that could be nice additions to a Thanksgiving collection. Look and Be Grateful by Tomie DePaola, Thankful by Eileen Spinelli, and the Thankful Book by Todd Parr. I also like Apples to Oregon by Deborah Hopkins, which isn’t thanksgiving related, but would be a nice Thanksgiving-y/apples/farmers/adventure read. It’s such a fun read aloud.
More and more I’m wanting Thanksgiving to be an important holiday for my family—and not just the starting gate to Christmas. I love the idea of encouraging thankfulness—and a holiday that is about being together (without fireworks or piles of presents or candy or costumes or egg hunts or any of that).
One that I discovered during a library story time and liked is called “Thank you, Thanksgiving.” It’s a simple picture book but really sweet for younger kids. It’s about a little girl who walks to the store on Thanksgiving Day to get a last-minute ingredient for dinner and thanks all the things she sees.
I also second the votes for Eileen Spinelli’s Thankful! We bought that one a couple of years ago to bring out in November, and every year we all say what we are thankful for and write it inside the book.
I LOVE Balloons Over Broadway! We read it every year around Thanksgiving, I should probably just buy a copy!
We like Otis Gives Thanks by Loren Long. Not sure it’s technically a Thanksgiving book, but it’s about being thankful so it works for us!
I love “Before We Eat” by Pat Brisson as a Thanksgiving Book. It’s not technically about Thanksgiving but it has you follow some food from farm to table in a very simple way and give thanks all along the way (even to the truck drivers who bring the food to the supermarket)
How Many Days to America: A Thanksgiving Story by Eve Bunting is really good. Especially in light of the current immigration crisis.
I just recently discovered that Over the River is Thanksgiving and not Christmas! My 2-year-old loves Sharing the Bread …probably because we sing it instead of just reading…it’s one of those rhyming ones that just begs to be sung. We use a variation of the tune of Polly Put the Kettle On.
We like The Ugly Pumpkin – a pumpkin based book that is actually really about Thanksgiving. Great list! And have loved reading the comments.
One I didn’t see mentioned in the comments and is super cute is This First Thanksgiving Day A Counting Story by Laura Krauss Melmed, Illustrated by Mark Buehner. It’s illustrations are beautiful and it has the cutest children and hidden rabbits to find on each page, super fun!