What do you think?
Rate this book
Thanks for Thanksgiving
"Thanks for the candles gleaming. Thanks for the faces beaming... Thanks for the bright fall sky. Thanks for the birds' goodbye."
Fall is a time of blue skies and apple pies, playing in leaves and sun-dappled trees. Thanks for Thanksgiving's joyful text and vibrant colours are a feast that celebrates Canada's most glorious season.
The text and warm, glowing colour illustrations of this Canadian Thanksgiving picture book conjure up the rich sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the holiday.
Fall is a time of blue skies and apple pies, playing in leaves and sun-dappled trees. Thanks for Thanksgiving's joyful text and vibrant colours are a feast that celebrates Canada's most glorious season.
The text and warm, glowing colour illustrations of this Canadian Thanksgiving picture book conjure up the rich sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the holiday.
- GenresThanksgiving
32 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 2013
1 person is currently reading
28 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 15, 2023
Ha, ha, ha, I had to repost my review, as I somehow managed to delete it (but kind of cool and fitting this happened on October 8, 2023 and thus precisely on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend).
Although simple in structure and content, the nuggets of sweet poetry presented by Heather Patterson's in her 1998 picture book Thanks for Thanksgiving do with lyrical grace show and celebrate the autumnal joys of a Canadian Thanksgiving, with fall colours, the migration of birds, and of course, the delicious glories of the traditional family feast. But albeit that Thanks for Thanksgiving is definitely meant to be an homage to Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations, I would actually consider Patterson's featured text and even Mary Jane Gerber's accompanying illustrations to be for the most part rather universal in nature, as similar dinner preparations would also occur during American Thanksgiving, although the emphasis on fall and autumn leaves is more an integral part of Canadian Thanksgiving, seeing that it is celebrated in mid October and not in late November like in the United States (and just to say that for me personally, while with Gerber's artwork for Thanks for Thanksgiving there is a bit too much of a visual emphasis on people and not enough on the autumn landscape, the pictures do quite delightfully show the wonders and beauty of the season, providing a lush and evocative palette, a lovely and fitting compliment to and for Heather Patterson's tenderly lyrical words and that with Thanks for Thanksgiving, one can not only see, but even in one's thoughts and imagination smell, taste and hear the sights, sounds, flavours and scents of Thanksgiving, of autumn).
Now an added bonus regarding Thanks for Thanksgiving (and certainly more for parents and/or older children, and definitely more academic and as well as being quite specifically Canadian in tone and thematics) is Heather Patterson's informative author's note. And of especial interest is or should be the fact that the first North American Thanksgiving celebration (well, non Native Canadian/American that is) was NOT ACTUALLY the 1621 Plymouth Colony harvest feasting. For in 1578, Martin Frobisher held the first "Canadian" celebration of Thanksgiving, rejoicing in the fact that he and his crew had survived the journey from England to Labrador, and in 1606, French explorer Jacques Cartier held a Thanksgiving feast and which his Micmac neighbours were also invited to attend. And therefore, while it is indeed true that the 1621 Plymouth Colony Thanksgiving feast is likely the most famous and best known of these historic celebrations, and that it has also and obviously influenced and even somewhat dictated how Thanksgiving is celebrated (even today) in both the U.S.A. and Canada, it was most definitely not ever the "first" Thanksgiving by any stretch of the imagination. But really, and these are my personal musings, should we even be calling the 1578, the 1606, the 1621 Thanksgiving feasts "first" "second" or whatever number, as Native American and Native Canadian harvest and thanksgiving celebrations were being held, were being enjoyed for many many centuries before there was any colonisation by Europe/Europeans (and these often sacred communal feasts are still being held and celebrated today as fall gatherings and diverse harvest festivals).
Although simple in structure and content, the nuggets of sweet poetry presented by Heather Patterson's in her 1998 picture book Thanks for Thanksgiving do with lyrical grace show and celebrate the autumnal joys of a Canadian Thanksgiving, with fall colours, the migration of birds, and of course, the delicious glories of the traditional family feast. But albeit that Thanks for Thanksgiving is definitely meant to be an homage to Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations, I would actually consider Patterson's featured text and even Mary Jane Gerber's accompanying illustrations to be for the most part rather universal in nature, as similar dinner preparations would also occur during American Thanksgiving, although the emphasis on fall and autumn leaves is more an integral part of Canadian Thanksgiving, seeing that it is celebrated in mid October and not in late November like in the United States (and just to say that for me personally, while with Gerber's artwork for Thanks for Thanksgiving there is a bit too much of a visual emphasis on people and not enough on the autumn landscape, the pictures do quite delightfully show the wonders and beauty of the season, providing a lush and evocative palette, a lovely and fitting compliment to and for Heather Patterson's tenderly lyrical words and that with Thanks for Thanksgiving, one can not only see, but even in one's thoughts and imagination smell, taste and hear the sights, sounds, flavours and scents of Thanksgiving, of autumn).
Now an added bonus regarding Thanks for Thanksgiving (and certainly more for parents and/or older children, and definitely more academic and as well as being quite specifically Canadian in tone and thematics) is Heather Patterson's informative author's note. And of especial interest is or should be the fact that the first North American Thanksgiving celebration (well, non Native Canadian/American that is) was NOT ACTUALLY the 1621 Plymouth Colony harvest feasting. For in 1578, Martin Frobisher held the first "Canadian" celebration of Thanksgiving, rejoicing in the fact that he and his crew had survived the journey from England to Labrador, and in 1606, French explorer Jacques Cartier held a Thanksgiving feast and which his Micmac neighbours were also invited to attend. And therefore, while it is indeed true that the 1621 Plymouth Colony Thanksgiving feast is likely the most famous and best known of these historic celebrations, and that it has also and obviously influenced and even somewhat dictated how Thanksgiving is celebrated (even today) in both the U.S.A. and Canada, it was most definitely not ever the "first" Thanksgiving by any stretch of the imagination. But really, and these are my personal musings, should we even be calling the 1578, the 1606, the 1621 Thanksgiving feasts "first" "second" or whatever number, as Native American and Native Canadian harvest and thanksgiving celebrations were being held, were being enjoyed for many many centuries before there was any colonisation by Europe/Europeans (and these often sacred communal feasts are still being held and celebrated today as fall gatherings and diverse harvest festivals).
January 3, 2018
Canadian content and addresses the meaning of the holiday, but no snow and no religious content. Perfect story time book for thanksgiving.
December 21, 2021
Very repetitive, but sincere.
November 24, 2022
It’s sweet, it’s easy enough that we can all read a page at a time, and it’s Canadian!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews