. . . If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620

by Ann McGovern, Anna DiVito (Illustrator)

What if you sailed on the Mayflower?

A different time...a different place...What if you were there?

If you sailed on the Mayflower
--What could you take with you?
--How would you keep clean?
--What would you do when you first got to shore?

Get ready to go back in time to 1620 to discover what it was like to sail the Mayflower!

Genres: History, Thanksgiving, Nonfiction, American History, Childrens, Picture Books, School

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Ann McGovern Scheiner (née Weinberger) was an American writer of more than 55 children's books, selling over 30 million copies. She may be best known for her adaptation of Stone Soup, as well as Too Much Noise, historical and travel non-fiction, and biographies of figures like Harriet Tubman and Deborah Sampson Gannett and Eugenie Clark.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gets an "amazing" because my kids were on the edge of the couch listening to this. They spent three nights in a row talking to their dad about it at dinner and it still comes up every now and then. Even the 5-yr-old enjoyed it and has been able to talk about it.

This is just a brief overview of the Pilgrims. It covers a bit while in England/Holland then more on the Mayflower itself and then the New World. It took us 3 days to read it. It covers "all the basics" you'd need to know. It doesn't hide the fact that it was hard, that people got sick and that they died. But it also doesn't dwell on it. Using actual names and a brief tidbit about them here and there made it seem much more personal.

The illustrations are lovely. I thought the question/answer format would irritate me, but it worked well here.

This would be all you'd need for the younger grades, but around 3rd grade or so you would want to add a few other books for depth.

I don't know if my boys will ever forget the Billington boys who lit a piece of rope while standing by the gunpowder kegs on board the ship. Or the punishment of tying someone's head to their feet (they actually want us to try that one!). And they're looking forward to their Pilgrim meal with real eels - or as one of them suggested, a cake made to look like an eel.

[Cheryl Meibos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book to show right before Thanksgiving. It answers questions you didn't even know you had. How many children were on the Mayflower? What did they eat and drink? Did any of them get into trouble? How long was the journey? Find out by reading this book!

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very thoroughly written book about the daily lives of Pilgrims, easy for elementary kids to understand.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents the journey of the pilgrims to the New World in a manner that matched their condition, unwashed. They spent over 60 days in tight quarters eating poor food and wearing the same clothes. The only water available for washing was sea water and since they were traveling in the North Atlantic late in the year, the water would have been very cold.
The most significant point made concerns the Native Americans that they encountered when they arrived. Often lost in the historical accounts is the fact that were it not for the aid of the inhabitants, the colony that was the forerunner of their near extinction could not have survived without the help of the Native Americans, specifically Squanto and Chief Massasoit. The Native Americans taught the colonists how to grow the native crops and hunt the abundant game. Furthermore, the Native Americans did not hunt the colonists to extinction, something they could easily have done.
A quality rendition of the difficulties encountered by the migratory group we now call the Pilgrims; this book is a worthy addition to all libraries at the elementary school level.

[Emily Farnschlader]

This story was about the Pilgrims journey to America. It uses a question and answer format as it is writing about the trip. The story not only talks about the trip through the ocean, but it also discusses what happened once they got here. It talks about the hard reality that there was lots of illness and many people died, but it did not make this a big emphasis. It uses the real names and shows a diagram of the set-up of the Mayflower. It talks about what it would have been like to be a kid during this time. They talk about the friendship that the Pilgrims gained with the Indians. Then the story end talking about the very first Thanksgiving holiday.
This story would be great to read when the students are learning about the Pilgrims. There are words in the story that are italisized which could be used as vocabulary words. The kids would be able to make a connection between how different things were back in 1620 than they are now. This would also be a good story to read near Thanksgiving to help the students to understand how the holiday was started and what it was first about.

[The other John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have bothered to review this. I might have picked it up off of the kids' reading stack, paged through it, maybe even enjoyed it, but then would put it down without further ado. These days, however, since I'm reading all sorts of kids' books and posting my reviews on GoodReads, I'm more inclined to put in my two-cents worth. Anyway, this is a nice little illustrated book that gives kids a peek into what life might have been like for a Pilgrim boy or girl aboard the Mayflower and later in the Plymouth colony. It gives a good overview of the time, mentioning the hardships and personal conflicts as well as the triumphs of The Mayflower Compact and the first Thanksgiving celebration. It helps make this bit of history come alive and is worth checking out if you have young'uns who need to study their history.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of wonderful, useful, interesting questions and answers and even pictures for the younger ones to look at. We are studying early American history this year in my homeschool. I am reading older "textbooks" to my 2 older elementary children but decided to read this one to my 8 year old / 3rd grader who has a much shorter attention span. I was impressed with how well this book summarized all that we learned (from other books) about the Mayflower and the Pilgrims first year in the New World. It does so in a clear, easily understood and entertaining way. I read this whole book (80 pages with pictures) in 3 days to my 8 year old son who loved it!

This would be a wonderful book to read the week of Thanksgiving as a reminder of our early beginnings and what the first Thanksgiving really was!!

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My daughter, age 10, really like the question/answer format of these books and I think she likes the cartoony illustrations too. The topics and flow of the book really seem to suit her (and probably many 8-12 year olds) informational gathering style. I am not comfortable that the information concerning the native tribes is well presented but it doesn't seem intentionally wrong. We have also read other, more recent books, on the Plymouth Colony that have helped to tell the story more completely.

B. age 10: I would rate this book 2.5 stars. I liked the part about the sailors calling the pigrims glib-glabbety puke-stockings. That was hilarious in an odd sort of way. I like learning about settling in North America.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a book that could be easily spread out to multiple days before Thanksgiving. It can be also a be a pre-writing activity book for students to ask questions, as the book is written with those questions in mind, and tries so answer all of them. I like how the beginning of the book starts with a cutout of the boat, and it explains what that view point means. This book will build a lot of content knowledge and connect with prior background knowledge on the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. The pictures are drawn in a cartoon fashion, with the emotions being exaggerated to match the text.

[Teri · Rating 5 out of 5]

In lively question-and-answer style, this fact-filled book answers all sorts of questions about the Pilgrims' journey on the Mayflower and their first year in America. Boys and girls will find out why the Pilgrims left England to live in America, what they took with them on board the Mayflower, and the hardships they endured. They'll learn what the Mayflower Compact was, how the Pilgrims made a peace treaty with the Indians, and how these brave settlers managed to survive in their new land.

Age/Grade: 7+

Instructional Ideas:
Use in a unit on Colonial Times. After reading, students can write in first person as if they were living in that era.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

1st-4th

This is a great book to help teach students about the Mayflower. The major questions students have are answered. It answers what the Mayflower is, who the Pilgrims are, why the Pilgrims left England and took this journey on the Mayflower. These are all answered through out a story of the Pilgrims journey on the Mayflower to the first year in America. The reader learns about this historical event through the fun illustrations and text.
Have your students explore the journey on the Mayflower. A time that was simpler and full of exploration. This story would be a great support for a Social Studies lesson.

[Caitlyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fifth grade teacher, this truly helped my students understand the entirety of what life was like for the Pilgrims that sailed to The New World on The Mayflower. My students got a taste of what Pilgrims went through on an everyday basis. The book is written as a question-answer style, which was extremely helpful when students began asking questions about the historical time period. The information was also extremely accurate and did not try to hide anything from readers; both good things and bad things were explained in kid-friendly language to help them understand.

I'd recommend this book to readers around the ages of 7-13.

[MotherofReaders · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprise favorite from our thanksgiving books. I did not think a straight read through would work well for my not-quite-four year old because the content is long and dense and she doesn’t have much historical background knowledge. Instead, I gave her a brief overview of the mayflower and the pilgrims and then we read the questions together. She decided which questions she wanted answered and we read just those parts. She requested the book many times and we ended up reading most, of not all, of the sections. Note that it does use the term “Indians” rather than “native Americans.”

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one that I once owned, purchased with my dad's hard earned money from a school book order. I read it repeatedly, really got Dad's money's worth out of it.

What I most remember about this book is the horrid food that the Pilgrims ate while on the Mayflower. I believe hardtack was mentioned.

I don't remember if the book touched on death at all. Did people die on the Mayflower? I can't remember and I no longer have this book. Maybe my sis has my old copy. I need to ask her about all those books I no longer have.

[Rainier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the book that was overgreeable, condamicamently and caustiousinal. I learned that Thanksgiving first lasted for three days, then the next years, it lasted one. The pilgrams went to someplace called Cape Cod, then went back, Then they went to Plymouth Rock and then Plymouth after they went to Cape Cod. Another thing I learned about them was that there was lots of church books on the Mayflower, and church I always miss.

I would recommend this book to people who don't know about the Mayflower and everybody!

[Kira Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book answer many frequently asked questions about the Mayflower. It had a lot of great general information that could spark students interest about a social studies unit. I personal liked the picture of the Mayflower, and how they broke down the parts of the boat. It would be fun for students to create their own Mayflower ship, and write a story about the voyage.

[Caroline Petty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book to teach children about what the Mayflower was and how it impacted the history of our country. It would be fun to read around Thanksgiving or at any time of the year. The colorful pictures along with the question answer style would make it very interactive for children as they learned about this topic.

[Tara Mensing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book of 80 pages packed of information about the Mayflower and what pilgrims were like. This book will help children understand what it was like to live through this time. This book could used as a source for a project and it has great illustrations to go along with the text. Awesome for a classroom.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is part of a fun series about the United States. These books are written as answers to questions, each question in the table of contents, so a child can easily look it up without having to read through the entire book. The illustrations are cute, even though the answers to some of the questions are a little grim.

[Marilyn Showalter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informational
2nd-4th grade reading level
I thought this book really covered a broad range of information. I liked that it was set up in question and answer because I think often times kids have so many questions and this book had all the answers. Even though this book was older it didn’t seem like it since it was talking about a time long ago. It took me back to the time of the Pilgrims.

[Mindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a most delightful book I read with my children to learn about Thanksgiving! My children were fascinated and we learned things about the pilgrims that I had never even learned before! We thoroughly enjoyed reading this for our home school!

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful, useful resource for upper elementary/middle school students. Gives information on the Mayflower, the types of people on board -passengers and crew, the voyage, the hardships.....excellent overview.

[Kelsey Scherer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well illustrated book that helps to introduce the Mayflower to students. It is a fun way to lead into this topic area and it allows students to visualize what they are learning about. This book is very informational and perfect for the upper elementary classroom.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

We enjoyed reading and imagining what it would have been like to sail on the mayflower and live in the new world that first winter with pretty much nothing in the way of food, shelter and comforts. We all agree it would be TERRIBLE!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

We've requested several more books from this series from the library. Too long for a single sit down read aloud, but full of accessible info about the Pilgrim voyage. A stayed up to read it through by himself.

[Bryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book to give kids a brief look at what life was really like for the pilgrims!

[carrietracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very useful for teaching grade 3 learners about the settlers who sailed on the Mayflower and general conditions at that time.

[Teri · Rating 1 out of 5]

just plain awful!

[Blakeley Norris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great book to use when talking about the explorers of the world in Social Studies. It talks about the Mayflower and all the other Social Studies topics that stem from this subject.

[Tati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presented in a very engaging way, my 5 and 7 year olds interest! I have enjoyed learning more about the Mayflower trip as well.