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

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
Shannon's comically gangly turkey is a creative thinker, unlike pessimistic Pig, Hen, and Chick, who give up on reaching some high-growing blackberries. Like the industrious Little Red Hen, Turkey Tot keeps on working, and with a little imagination and a positive attitude, he succeeds. With its short sentences and humorous repetition, this makes an entertaining book for storytime as well as a good early reader.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2014
Shannon's comically gangly turkey is a creative thinker and excellent problem-solver, unlike pessimistic Pig, Hen, and Chick, who immediately give up on reaching some high-growing blackberries: "No sweet and juicy treat today." When Turkey Tot comes across a ball of string, his friends aren't impressed, and they pooh-pooh his idea of finding some balloons to go with the string to help them float up to the berries. ("He's been different since the day he hatched" is Hen's refrain.) Like that industrious Little Red Hen of folklore, Turkey Tot just keeps on working, not always finding what he's looking for but finding something else he may be able to put to use, like a hammer and nails or a pair of tin cans. At the end, with hard work, a little imagination, and a positive attitude, Turkey Tot succeeds, and shares his spoils with his no-longer-skeptical friends. Mann uses loose black lines with bright watercolors and digital collage in her illustrations. Big, comic-style thought balloons show the friends imagining each of the turkey's schemes failing, their round eyes with black dots somehow giving away their thoughts. With its short words and sentences and humorous repetition, this makes a good early reader as well as an entertaining storytime book. susan dove lempke

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)