If the name Squanto doesn’t ring a bell, ask an 8-year-old. The story of the Native American who helped the Pilgrims survive their first desperate year in what is now Plymouth, Mass., has become a staple of elementary-school curricula. The laudable objective is to give the Wampanoag people their due in the often-misrepresented Thanksgiving story.
Andrew Lipman accomplishes this task and more in “Squanto: A Native Odyssey,� a captivating, elegantly written biography of the man Plymouth Gov. William Bradford declared “a special instrument sent of God.� Mr. Lipman, who teaches history at Barnard College, reconstructs the remarkable life and times of the Pilgrims� interpreter, teacher, counselor and diplomatic go-between while drawing a portrait of the Wampanoag culture that shaped him. It appears that “Squanto� is the first book for adult readers on this intriguing figure in early American history.
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