Synopsis
Gus loves being a turkey, that is, until his friends tell him about Thanksgiving. Pilgrims—no problem; feast—NO WAY! So Gus heads south, the way birds do, to escape being part of someone's dinner.
School Library Journal
K-Gr 3
Bateman offers up a workmanlike parallel between a turkey on a journey to save himself from a Thanksgiving feast and the Pilgrims of yore who created the tradition he seeks to avoid. Gus has grown up on a farm with all the amenities and has a penchant for dressing up. After hearing from his barnyard friends that turkeys "don't make it to January," he packs his things and follows the flocks of birds migrating south. Turkeys are good eating everywhere though, and life is dangerous until he meets an accommodating parcel of penguins at the South Pole and discovers that this journey to safety has made him a pilgrim. Though the concept has potential, Gus's story unfolds with the straightforwardness of a school composition; even the page design, with its tired Comic Sans font, doesn't make the most of the material. Sasaki's cartoon paintings have the same pedestrian feel as the narrative. For this holiday, read Eve Bunting's A Turkey for Thanksgiving (Clarion, 1991) or Mary Jane Auch's Beauty and the Beaks (Holiday House, 2007) instead.-Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC