Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story

♦ The Thanksgiving story, told from the perspective of the Wampanoag people.
A Wamponoag grandmother plants her garden with weeâchumun (corn), beans, and squash, or the Three Sisters. When her grandchildren ask to hear the story of Thanksgiving, N8hkumuhs tells them that their people call it Keepunumuk, “the time of harvest,” and explains what really happened. The tale opens with Seagull warning Weeâchumun—depicted as a woman with a translucent body—of the Pilgrims’ arrival; Weeâchumun worries because many of the First Peoples who cared for her have gone to the Spirit World, and she fears this…

♦ U.S. Thanksgiving is a day of mourning for North American First Peoples, given that European settlers brought disease and warfare to their land. Greendeer (Mashpee Wampanoag) and her Indigenous cocreators here recount a story of the first harvest feast in 1621 from an Indigenous perspective. When her grandchildren request a story, N8hkumuhs tells of Keepunumuk, the time of harvest. When new people arrive, Weeâchumun wonders if they can be trusted. They build houses on top of an empty village, steal corn seeds for planting, and misunderstand the ways of nature. In the spring, the People…

—Booklist, starred review

This picture book features a contemporary Wampanoag grandmother and her grandchildren. N8hkumuhs shares the story of the Three Sisters—Corn, Beans, and Squash—and the first Thanksgiving, known as “Keepunumuk” by the Wampanoag people. The book transitions into a combination of history and storytelling about contact between the “First Peoples” and the newcomers. This format will be novel to some young children given the setting and timeframe of the story, though the book attempts to differentiate the parts that are the story by changing the typeface and including ethereal-like images of the…

VERDICT: A good choice for libraries striving to share Indigenous perspectives
— School Library Journal

Opening sidebars contextualizing the Wampanoag tribes’ cultivation of their ancestral homeland and a glossary of Wôpanâak words is an edifying setup for this First Peoples narrative around Thanksgiving. While harvesting food from her garden, N8hkumuhs tells her grandchildren the tale of how the corn spirit Weeâchumun and her sisters, despite hesitance from watchful Fox, encouraged the First Peoples to teach European newcomers how to plant, fish, and hunt. In celebration, the newcomers prepared a feast and, together with the First Peoples, rejoiced for three days, leading to what most…