Pocahontas / Ingri & Edgar D'Aulaire

First published in 1946 with the d'Aulaires' beautiful lithographic prints, this tale of the first colony at Jamestown is told from the perspective of the princess daughter of the mighty chief Powhatan. When the medicine man judges the white man's magic as evil, John Smith is condemned to death—only the intervention of Pocahontas saves his life and a tentative friendship is established between Pocahontas's tribe and the new colonists. The King of England sends a crown, rich robes and a royal bed to honor Powhatan and he is pleased, but the white man's insistence that the Indians give them corn to sustain them through the long winters threatens their tenuous relationship. Pocahontas's ultimate marriage to John Rolfe, the birth of their son, their voyage to England and presentation to the King and Queen is the stuff of fairy tales except that it is one of the great true stories of America's earliest days.