The TTLG 2011 Picture Book Celebration: Book three hundred and twenty-eight

Today people all over America (and Americans in other parts of the world) will spend the day cooking, eating, and recovering for their overeating. For many of these people, the piece de resistance of the meal will be a roasted turkey. The turkeys that Americans eat during Thanksgiving are domesticated birds, but there are still many of their wild cousins roaming around. In fact, I saw a large troop of them just the other day, walking across the road so that they could visit one of the local parks. It seems appropriate somehow to share a book about turkeys with you on this special day.

Gobble Gobble

Cathryn Falwell

Picture Book

For ages 5 to 7

Dawn Publications, 2011, 978-1-58469-149-5

   It is spring, and Jenny is in the woods exploring when she sees strange prints in the mud and some feathers on the ground. She hears a “funny gobbling sound,” and when she peers around a tree, she sees a flock of turkeys looking for “seeds to eat.” Some days later, she sees the tom turkeys strutting around with their tail feathers fanned out, and the hens are scraping at the ground to make shallow nests.

   In the summer, the turkeys’ eggs hatch, and Jenny sees the hens leading their babies around. Then in the fall, the turkeys roost in trees to get away from the frozen, cold, and often slippery, ground. In winter, will the turkeys slide down the snowy hill as Jenny and her friends do?

   In this fact filled picture book, Cathryn Falwell shows children what wild turkeys are like, using a bouncy rhyming text to tell the story of turkey behavior from season to season. At the back of the book readers will find Jenny’s turkey journal. Here she provides readers with further information about wild turkey history, conservation, and biology. Jenny also suggests three activities that children can try that will help them to better appreciate the natural world around them.