Turkey Tot

August 1, 2013
A determined turkey gets the sweet, juicy, high-hanging berries. Turkey Tot is wandering about the bucolic farmstead--the reader winningly transported there via Mann's easy-handed, dark-lined, watercolor-washed artwork--where he lives with his friends Chick, Pig and Hen, in search of something to eat. Blackberries beckon, but they are too high to reach. So Turkey Tot looks about for some way to access the berries. His friends think all his ideas are cockamamie--and repeatedly so in Shannon's polyphonic refrain: "You're talking silly talk." "We can't reach the berries, and that is that." "He's been different since the day he hatched." They decide to take a nap by the pond. But Turkey Tot will not be discouraged. Perhaps his first few ideas are a little off note--one has him finding a ball of string to which, he figures, he will tie a balloon and float Pig up to berryland--but he finally manages to wire all his different schemes together and snag the berries. Then he shares them with his uninspired comrades, which is more than the Little Red Hen would have done. Good for Turkey Tot: freethinking, resolved, generous. Let's hope that when November rolls around, Turkey Tot has become the farm's mascot, not its dinner. (Picture book. 3-6)

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August 1, 2013

PreS-K-Turkey Tot thinks outside the box. He's hopeful, imaginative, and persistent, refusing to let his Debbie Downer friends in the farmyard discourage him. He's determined to retrieve juicy blackberries that hang just out of reach, but he needs a little help to implement the plans he makes to get within range. His enthusiastic schemes include floating up to the berries via a bunch of balloons and being flung at them from a teeter-totter. Naysayers Pig, Hen, and Chick tell him no way, no how. No matter, because Turkey Tot pulls together materials to make a pair of stilts from tin cans, and he fills a basket with the plump berries on his own. Now, his detractors sing a different tune. Hen's observation that Turkey Tot has been "different since the day he hatched" is no longer a criticism but a compliment. Shannon's writing is simple, clean, and cheerful, and his message of stick-to-itiveness is delivered perfectly. He also incorporates refrains that kids will have fun repeating during storytimes. Mann's illustrations, a blend of watercolor, pencil, and digital collage, pop against ample white space, and the four characters are depicted in a wonderfully silly and endearing style. This picture book, like its protagonist, is a bona fide winner.-Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR

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