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Better Together
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
"I've always been fond of birds, poultry in particular." From that first sentence, readers will gobble up Karr's (Oh, Those Harper Girls!) hilarious novel of a boy who resolves to walk 1000 turkeys from the Show-Me state to Denver, Colorado. Simon, who's 15 and newly graduated from the third grade, may not be too bright, but he figures he can make his fortune by buying Mr. Buffey's bronze turkeys for a quarter apiece and selling them in Denver for $5 each. With his schoolteacher as an investor, Simon picks up a former drunk and a runaway slave to be his partners, and starts herding those turkeys 900 miles down the road. In their travels, they encounter a raging river and a swarm of locusts, each of which the turkeys conquer. But peskiest of all, they're tailed by Simon's no-good father, a circus strongman, who decides he wants in on the deal. The gifted Karr has a cheerful, sassy down-home writing style and a perfect pitch for dialogue (she also has an authoritative knowledge of poultry, having grown up on a New Jersey chicken farm). A bonus: the tale is based in truth?there really were turkey drives in the American West. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8?Fusing plot elements and modes of characterization (or appropriate near-stereotypes) from the tall tale, the comic novel, the melodrama, and the more literary Bildungsroman, The Great Turkey Walk is a charmer, from the immediate hook of its first chapter to its perfectly satisfying conclusion. The year is 1860, and "pea-brained" Simon Green, a brawny 15 year old, is "graduated" from school after his fourth year of third grade. Wondering what to do next, he seizes upon the complaint of a local turkey farmer: that birds worth $5 in turkey-starved boomtown Denver are worth only 25 cents in Missouri. With the financial assistance of his beloved former teacher (and new business sponsor), who risks her life savings to help him, Simon buys 1000 birds. A few more minor loans?a wagon, feed corn, four mules?and the partnership of a washed-up mule driver are all he needs to begin the 800-mile trek to Denver. Along the way, Simon matures from a good-hearted and sensible (if not booksmart) boy to a good-hearted, sensible, and potentially wealthy young man, and mule driver Bidwell Peece recovers his dignity. Joined en route by a runaway slave and the sole survivor of a homesteading family, Simon gains his first true friend and the girlfriend who may someday become his wife. Full of good humor and page-turning quest-style events, the story smacks of legend and archetype without seeming self-important, and it genuinely amuses readers rather that smugly proclaiming its wit. This novel begs to be read aloud.?Coop Renner, Coldwell Elementary Intermediate School, El Paso, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
"I've always been fond of birds, poultry in particular." From that first sentence, readers will gobble up Karr's (Oh, Those Harper Girls!) hilarious novel of a boy who resolves to walk 1000 turkeys from the Show-Me state to Denver, Colorado. Simon, who's 15 and newly graduated from the third grade, may not be too bright, but he figures he can make his fortune by buying Mr. Buffey's bronze turkeys for a quarter apiece and selling them in Denver for $5 each. With his schoolteacher as an investor, Simon picks up a former drunk and a runaway slave to be his partners, and starts herding those turkeys 900 miles down the road. In their travels, they encounter a raging river and a swarm of locusts, each of which the turkeys conquer. But peskiest of all, they're tailed by Simon's no-good father, a circus strongman, who decides he wants in on the deal. The gifted Karr has a cheerful, sassy down-home writing style and a perfect pitch for dialogue (she also has an authoritative knowledge of poultry, having grown up on a New Jersey chicken farm). A bonus: the tale is based in truth?there really were turkey drives in the American West. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8?Fusing plot elements and modes of characterization (or appropriate near-stereotypes) from the tall tale, the comic novel, the melodrama, and the more literary Bildungsroman, The Great Turkey Walk is a charmer, from the immediate hook of its first chapter to its perfectly satisfying conclusion. The year is 1860, and "pea-brained" Simon Green, a brawny 15 year old, is "graduated" from school after his fourth year of third grade. Wondering what to do next, he seizes upon the complaint of a local turkey farmer: that birds worth $5 in turkey-starved boomtown Denver are worth only 25 cents in Missouri. With the financial assistance of his beloved former teacher (and new business sponsor), who risks her life savings to help him, Simon buys 1000 birds. A few more minor loans?a wagon, feed corn, four mules?and the partnership of a washed-up mule driver are all he needs to begin the 800-mile trek to Denver. Along the way, Simon matures from a good-hearted and sensible (if not booksmart) boy to a good-hearted, sensible, and potentially wealthy young man, and mule driver Bidwell Peece recovers his dignity. Joined en route by a runaway slave and the sole survivor of a homesteading family, Simon gains his first true friend and the girlfriend who may someday become his wife. Full of good humor and page-turning quest-style events, the story smacks of legend and archetype without seeming self-important, and it genuinely amuses readers rather that smugly proclaiming its wit. This novel begs to be read aloud.?Coop Renner, Coldwell Elementary Intermediate School, El Paso, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
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