Three Young Pilgrims

Using the lives of three real children who traveled on the Mayflower and lived in the Plymouth Colony--Mary, Remember and Bartholomew Allerton--Harness focuses on their experiences and ``adventures during one year, between the autumns of 1620 and 1621.'' She surrounds their story with the larger one of the Pilgrims' struggle for religious freedom and human survival, and invests these figures from the past with a vitality and accessibility that transcend the customary seasonal emphases. This is no sanitized interpretation: the death of the children's mother and her new baby is included, as are the illnesses and deaths of many of the other ``Saints''--Pilgrims--and ``strangers''--non-religious members of the settlement party. Nor is the historical information here confined to the well-paced, involving text; equally effective are the carefully researched watercolor, gouache and colored pencil paintings--possessed of a suitable rusticity, they expand the narrative with dramatic intensity. A generous inclusion of diagrams, charts and maps abounds with the kind of details and labels capable of mesmerizing youngsters for hours. This notable blend of fact and fiction deserves year-round popularity. Ages 5-10. (Sept.)