The "Journal of Jasper Jonathan Pierce", written by Ann Rinaldi, is a book that shows many personalities during the exploration of the New World for the europeans. This Journal displays moments such as what life in Plymouth was like, what struggles they encountered before, during, and after the voyage, and their relations with the Native Americans.
Plymouth winters were very harsh, and that is what mostly troubled them. Luckily however, the Native Americans were able to teach the settlers how to plant and grow crops. On the other hand, Plymouth was a very beautiful place, especially for a boy grown in lundon such as Jasper, and Rinaldi made sure she portraide this in the book. One of Rinaldi’s main goals was to show young children what it would be like to live in early Plymouth. In this novel, Jasper has great contention with to brothers, witch causes him to run away into the wilderness. This came to show us what the Natives’ lives were like, and how they were accepting to the Europeans.
Jasper was a bound servant, which means he traded work for what he desired, in this case voyage. On the Mayflower, Jasper’s favorite place to write, read, and listen were the “tween decks. Jasper’s life was obviously tragic because of this voyage, but also because of what happened before hand. Jasper’s mother died of the pox, his father died in prison, and his younger brother was left crying on the dock in london as he sails off to America. Now despite that Jasper’s life was bright with promise, for his new master, Elder Brewster, one of the saints, is kind and looks after him well.
The Native Americans in this book were shown, from the Europeans point of view, as mysterious, and also dangerous. This later changes after Samoset walks in to their village, greats them, and ends up helping them with growing crops to survive them the winter. We see Jasper travel into the unknown forests to flew trouble from the town. He falls unconscious in the forest, and when he wakes up he finds a similarly aged Native American named Chonuck. Chonuck was very kind to Jasper, and took him into a village, were he was yet again greeted with kindness.
During all of this, Jasper wrote in his journal accounts that he hopes his brother, Tom, might read it. He dedicates this journal to Tom, and askes direct questions as if Tom were there. He also talks about what his city life in london was like as if having a conversation with his brother. Ann Rinaldi’s writing is very powerful this way because she does not give a tour guide voice around the plymouth colonies, she brings out the voices of the people and what they are feeling, thinking, and believing. Not only does she display one voice, the settlers, she also displays the voice of the natives, and the environment. Jasper Jonathan Pierce is a part of a series called the “Dear America”. Through these books, especially Jonathan Jasper Pierce, Ann Rinaldi has always given us a good view of these events.
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