Tapenum's Day: A Wampanoag Indian Boy in Pilgrim Times

This book tells the story of a young Wampanoag Indian named Tapenum, who lived near a Pilgrim settlement in the early 1600s. The story is complete with Wampanoag rituals, descriptions of living quarters, and information on the everyday lives of the men and women (their roles, what they did, why it

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was important). Wampanoag is training to be a warrior, and he gives lots of detail on how he goes about doing that and what makes a good warrior. We get great insight into their societal structure, their diet, their clothing, and their weapons as well. There are many pictures to accompany this as well, giving students great visuals. At the end of the story, there’s more information on the Wampanoag and the author tells how we know of their tribe. There’s also an extremely helpful glossary of both English and Wampanoag words, as well as pronunciations. Once again, the author did her research and made sure it was well-documented. The pictures, as is her usual style, are beautifully done and well-represent the subject of the story and give great attention to detail. We don’t often see the view of Pilgrims from anyone other than the Pilgrims themselves, so to see the life of a young Indian boy during the time of American settlement is very refreshing. The text, once again, is juvenile, but I think students will appreciate the story and the information one can get from it nonetheless.

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