Comments for The Thanksgiving Door

The Thanksgiving Door: 06/22/10

I chose The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell from the themed shelf my library set up last November. I picked it for its title. Typically Thanksgiving books involve turkeys, pilgrims and the occasional cornucopia. I've never seen a door mentioned in any other titles. So from that alone, I picked the book.

An older married couple with no immediate family in the area have a burned turkey and no enthusiasm for a Thanksgiving meal when it's just the two of them. They decide to go out to dinner and end up inviting themselves to a family dinner being held at the closed restaurant. The door had been left ajar and they took it mean that the restaurant was open.

I've never gone out to dinner for Thanksgiving but I do know of restaurants that cater to older patrons typically plan special meals on the holidays. Where I felt the most connection with the book though was at the long chaotic table where the family has combined their traditional dishes with typical American Thanksgiving dishes. My mother in law in the past has invited graduated students and other people who didn't have anywhere else to go for the holiday to her table.

The Thanksgiving Door is a gem of a book. It's by far the best Thanksgiving story I've read and refreshingly different from the typical Thanksgiving. It focuses on the way the holiday is actually celebrated and embraced in this country, instead on the glorified history we've written to justify the holiday.

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Are You Afraid Yet? by Stephen James O'Meara
Bailey's Day by Robert Haggerty
A Brief History of Time by Shaindel Beers
Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown
Dead End by Helen R. Myers
Dreamstone by D. A. Hendrickson
The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
The Essential Basho by Basho and translated by Sam Hamill
Excuse Me... Are You a Witch? by Emily Horn
Farewell Atlantis by Terry Bisson
Freckle Juice by Judy Blume
Grampa's Zombie BBQ by Kirk Scraggs
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
How to Host a Killer Party by Penny Warner
The Kayla Chroincles by Sherri Winston
The Ladies' Paradise by Émile Zola
Little (Grrl) Lost by Charles de Lint
Little Quack's Hide and Seek by Lauren Thompson
The Man Who Did Something About It by Harvey Jacobs
Owly Volume 1: The Way Home and The Bittersweet Summer by Andy Runton
Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Tree House #22) by Mary Pope Osborne
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
The Soul of the Rhino by Hemanta Mishra
Spot Visits His Grandparents by Eric Hill
The Texicans by Nina Vida
The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell
Twister on Tuesday (Magic Tree House #23) by Mary Pope Osborne
Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown and Leo Dillon
The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman
Veracity by Laura Bynum

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The Thanksgiving Door: 06/22/10

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