Pilgrim Cat

This is an historical fiction picture book about a cat that sailed on the Mayflower and then settled into life at Plimoth Plantation. Carol got the idea for writing this book when she saw her young daughters playing with a cat on a visit to Plimoth Plantation. She wondered, Did cats come on the Mayflower too? From her research she learned that cats did, in fact, sail with the Pilgrims. This is the imagined story of a cat named Pounce. Pounce’s mistress is based on the lives of real Pilgrim children. When dialog is used it fits with the way children spoke back in the 1600s. Faith feared the Natives until she met Squanto. His story of compassion and assistance is a significant part of the book.

An important idea of this book is what people are willing to endure to have freedom. Before reading the book I would do a picture walk and make a list of all the things students learn just by viewing the illustrations. This will be important for building background knowledge. This book is particularly good for conveying content knowledge in the illustrations.

If I were teaching I think I would use the information in the book to design a simulation of the Mayflower journey at the beginning of a unit on Thanksgiving. At the end of the unit we would have another simulation of the first Thanksgiving meal. Students could engage in researching and planning the simulation. I would plan a virtual field trip by taking students to the Plimoth Plantation website. https://plimoth.org/for-teachers/bring-plimoth-patuxet-to-your-school.

About the Author:  Carol Peacock had two things she loved most as a kid—reading and pets. She still loves both of those things. When she was a kid she had favorite books and perhaps some of your students have those favorites too—Curious George, Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal, The Little Engine That Could, and anything that Dr. Seuss wrote. Carol went off to camp when she was 11 years old and a highlight of that was seeing her writing in publication for the first time. She entered a poetry contest about the camp and won. After that she knew she wanted to see her name in publication again. And she did, being published for the 2nd time when she was 13 with a short story published in her junior high literary magazine. Carol and her husband adopted two daughters from China and one of her books was about her daughter’s struggle to understand her adoption. She actually went to China to visit the orphanage where her daughters’ had lived and that trip inspired another of her books.

Pathways Themes: Yesterday 

Reviewed by Krystal Bishop, EdD

Professor of Education

Southern Adventist University

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