Danielle Greendeer’s Keepunumuk

Danielle Greendeer’s first book, Keepunumuk, is a retelling of the origins of Thanksgiving, from a Wampanoag perspective.
 

Greendeer is a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and third graders were eager to connect with her.
 

Throughout their yearlong study of North American history, third graders have many conversations about the impact European colonization had on Indigenous people.
 

Keepunumuk brings essential context to the first Thanksgiving, explaining its place in the history of New England’s Indigenous people, but also in relation to other harvest festivals in the region, which celebrate strawberries, quahogs, herrings and more at various points in the year.
 

At the heart of each of these festivals are relationships, between humans and other living things, between plants and animals, between families, between generations, and between kinship groups.
 

This morning, a new relationship was strengthened, as Greendeer and the students carried on a lively question and answer session.
 

Students drew her out on her own experience of Thanksgiving—what she had to eat this year, her experience of the National Day of Mourning—and her take on the Plimoth Patuxet Museums and the Mashpee Powwow.
 

They connected over the book Braiding Sweetgrass, and the stories of foods and plants that are special to their family.
 

It was a chance for these students to show how much they had learned about this long history.
 

It was also an opportunity for them to show that they were eager to learn more.
 

2022 Book Fair was busy

The story above was just one of dozens of special events happening around Gordon's 2022 Book Fair. 

Here are a few more:

Thursday author Karina Yan Glaser with second and third grade

Wednesday celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Joukowsky Family Library
Wednesday authors and publishers Cheryl and Wade Hudson with second grade
Wednesday author and illustrator Christopher Denise with first grade

Tuesday author and illustrator Deborah Freedman with Preschool, Young Kindergarten, Kindergarten and first grade
Tuesday author Anika Aldamuy Denise with first, second and fourth grade

Last week author Supriya Kelkar with second and third grade

Note! Guests met with many different grades in a number of workshops. The visits documented above were simply the ones Mr. Griffin happened to catch.