Scan barcode
Reviews
A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower, 1620 by Kathryn Lasky
soulwinds's review
2.0
2.3-2.5 stars for a Journey to the New World, in reality.
Thoughts and Plot
Let me just say that I left my star score at 2 because in reality, this book was completely put-downable. In fact I did, many times.
Then let me pose the question, is there a small list of names authors have to choose from in order to have it qualify as a Dear America? Maybe it's because I'm binge reading these, but I have notice a quite a few of girls in these books (not all main characters, but they're there!) with the names Remember (or Remembrance) and Patience.
Anyhow, this book starts with Remember Patience Whipple (there's a joke in there) starting her diary as they cross the Atlantic ocean on the Mayflower. Mem has a case of the quissies for most of her trip across the ocean. Somehow, she also know how far they have gone. Maybe that was the charting the course by stars thing, but it annoyed me a little bit because how would she know? It's 1620 and she's a girl!!! Anyway, I found the ocean voyage to be a little boring.
Once they hit land the men go off exploring and the women and children are left on the boat. This happens for quite a few entries. Eventually she takes to just writing how bored she is. Okay, fair enough. Once they are off the boat the women take to washing clothing while the kids run around for a bit before settling down enough to lend a hand. There's the hasty building of a common building and then of little huts for families. These things seem to almost appear out of thin air, but maybe it's because there are few entries actually describing the building process. Then people start getting ill and dying. But Mem doesn't seem to be too upset by any of it. At one point she actually just lists people off.
I couldn't believe how many times a new buildings caught fire. Or that her friend's family could just find passage back to Europe. I always assumed they would have to pay and considering how poorly the community was doing, I don't know how they would be able to do so.
It's nice to see that the Indigenous people are portrayed as they really were when settlers first started going to the "New World," kind, generous and understanding. They wanted to help the settlers survive and shared freely as they were taught to do. To them, everyone owned the land and it was to be shared.
By the end of her diary about half the people who came to settle the "New World" were dead, listed off in her journal were the ones she took notice of. There was a lot of sickness and death despite being in a warmer region of the East coast. The author, however, really down plays the deaths and the sickness is usually described as just that, so-and-so is sick. There are mentions of people coughing blood, but no descriptions.
In Conclusion
This book was okay. Not a game changer by any means. It covers the journey over, the long wait on the boat, glosses over the set up of the community and the clearing of land and the seeding of crops briefly, talks a bit of the indigenous people and their kindness, and of early Thanksgiving celebrations held (cut short by the narrator getting sick and missing a few weeks). I personally didn't feel a connection with Remember, but if you view other people's post you will find that they did so it might just be a personal thing.
Age Range: mid-middle school and up
Content: has a bit of a religious spin on it at the start, lots of people dying, lots of sickness but none in great detail.
Thoughts and Plot
Let me just say that I left my star score at 2 because in reality, this book was completely put-downable. In fact I did, many times.
Then let me pose the question, is there a small list of names authors have to choose from in order to have it qualify as a Dear America? Maybe it's because I'm binge reading these, but I have notice a quite a few of girls in these books (not all main characters, but they're there!) with the names Remember (or Remembrance) and Patience.
Anyhow, this book starts with Remember Patience Whipple (there's a joke in there) starting her diary as they cross the Atlantic ocean on the Mayflower. Mem has a case of the quissies for most of her trip across the ocean. Somehow, she also know how far they have gone. Maybe that was the charting the course by stars thing, but it annoyed me a little bit because how would she know? It's 1620 and she's a girl!!! Anyway, I found the ocean voyage to be a little boring.
Once they hit land the men go off exploring and the women and children are left on the boat. This happens for quite a few entries. Eventually she takes to just writing how bored she is. Okay, fair enough. Once they are off the boat the women take to washing clothing while the kids run around for a bit before settling down enough to lend a hand. There's the hasty building of a common building and then of little huts for families. These things seem to almost appear out of thin air, but maybe it's because there are few entries actually describing the building process. Then people start getting ill and dying. But Mem doesn't seem to be too upset by any of it. At one point she actually just lists people off.
I couldn't believe how many times a new buildings caught fire. Or that her friend's family could just find passage back to Europe. I always assumed they would have to pay and considering how poorly the community was doing, I don't know how they would be able to do so.
It's nice to see that the Indigenous people are portrayed as they really were when settlers first started going to the "New World," kind, generous and understanding. They wanted to help the settlers survive and shared freely as they were taught to do. To them, everyone owned the land and it was to be shared.
By the end of her diary about half the people who came to settle the "New World" were dead, listed off in her journal were the ones she took notice of. There was a lot of sickness and death despite being in a warmer region of the East coast. The author, however, really down plays the deaths and the sickness is usually described as just that, so-and-so is sick. There are mentions of people coughing blood, but no descriptions.
In Conclusion
This book was okay. Not a game changer by any means. It covers the journey over, the long wait on the boat, glosses over the set up of the community and the clearing of land and the seeding of crops briefly, talks a bit of the indigenous people and their kindness, and of early Thanksgiving celebrations held (cut short by the narrator getting sick and missing a few weeks). I personally didn't feel a connection with Remember, but if you view other people's post you will find that they did so it might just be a personal thing.
Age Range: mid-middle school and up
Content: has a bit of a religious spin on it at the start, lots of people dying, lots of sickness but none in great detail.
saturndoo's review
5.0
Wow!!! This series of books are really quick and easy to read but yet are very good stories. I did find a few things in the plot line that didn't seem quite right BUT the characters and story was still really good. Lots of info on historical events as well as some things these settlers dealt with such as starvation,death,and conflict. I am really enjoying these books and highly recommend them. Now I am off to read the next one :)
paperxfaerie's review
4.0
Super nostalgic to go back and read a Dear America book, since these WERE my childhood haha.
sprinklesugarbunbun's review
2.0
Read for museum research project.
It was pretty hard for me to get through. I think it's because I am 24 and this is written for middle-grade. However, I've had to read some middle-grade in college when I had been (stupidly) pursuing early childhood education (phew, I lucked out of that nightmare just in time), and some of the books we were assigned were written so well that you didn't notice the youthfulness of the book too much. It wasn't a grueling process to finish, unlike this book (which had, surprisingly, been recommended to me by museum peers).
One moment sticks out to me--something that bothered me. The character, Remember, wastes almost two pages of her 'diary' writing that she's bored. Bored, bored, so bored, oh so bored. Yes, the journey from Holland to Massachusetts would have been very trying for a young girl, and perhaps Lasky was trying to capture child-like thoughts, but it seemed really (for lack of a better word) BORING to come across Remember's boredom. She could have described more of her setting or used other characters as a means of story; Lasky already started to, by pulling in the Billington brothers.
I wouldn't recommend this to children wanting to read and empathize with a Pilgrim child. Not only was the writing tedious and jarring, but some of the information left me scratching my head, wondering if she used certain terms because it'd be easier for children to understand or that she didn't actually know the history and terminology as well as she should. Although this story takes place in the Mayflower, by Provincetown, and in Plymouth, I never felt grounded with the character. Everything, and even everyone, was written with a vagueness, as if you could sort of get a hazy sense of the seventeenth century world Remember lived in (who wasn't even an actual Pilgrim child on the ship) but not the full picture.
It was pretty hard for me to get through. I think it's because I am 24 and this is written for middle-grade. However, I've had to read some middle-grade in college when I had been (stupidly) pursuing early childhood education (phew, I lucked out of that nightmare just in time), and some of the books we were assigned were written so well that you didn't notice the youthfulness of the book too much. It wasn't a grueling process to finish, unlike this book (which had, surprisingly, been recommended to me by museum peers).
One moment sticks out to me--something that bothered me. The character, Remember, wastes almost two pages of her 'diary' writing that she's bored. Bored, bored, so bored, oh so bored. Yes, the journey from Holland to Massachusetts would have been very trying for a young girl, and perhaps Lasky was trying to capture child-like thoughts, but it seemed really (for lack of a better word) BORING to come across Remember's boredom. She could have described more of her setting or used other characters as a means of story; Lasky already started to, by pulling in the Billington brothers.
I wouldn't recommend this to children wanting to read and empathize with a Pilgrim child. Not only was the writing tedious and jarring, but some of the information left me scratching my head, wondering if she used certain terms because it'd be easier for children to understand or that she didn't actually know the history and terminology as well as she should. Although this story takes place in the Mayflower, by Provincetown, and in Plymouth, I never felt grounded with the character. Everything, and even everyone, was written with a vagueness, as if you could sort of get a hazy sense of the seventeenth century world Remember lived in (who wasn't even an actual Pilgrim child on the ship) but not the full picture.
sabrielsbell's review
3.0
This was a good book and a nice introduction to they journey on the Mayflower and life at Plymouth. However, I feel like the language and specific vocabulary (while true to the time) would make it hard for someone young to really get into the book. Overall, a decent read.
More...