Turkey Tot by George Shannon (review)

“Fat blackberries hanging overhead” are quite the temptation for Turkey Tot and his pals Pig, Hen, and Chick, but the critters simply can’t reach the dangling fruit. Inventive Turkey Tot keeps coming up with berry-grabbing possibilities based on items he finds in the barnyard, but his friends complacently accept the situation and dismiss his efforts (“He’s been different since the day he hatched,” grumbles Hen). Unfazed, TT continues his experiments and devises his own version of the classic Romper Stompers, tin cans on his feet that allow him to reach the berries; fortunately, the kindly bird is happy to share his spoils with his formerly skeptical, now appreciative friends. While there are clear echoes of “The Little Red Hen” here in structure and trajectory, this is no monitory parable but a happy tale of the pleasures of problem solving. The text’s simplicity and careful, folkloric structure, including audience-appealing phrases and plot patterns, will draw young audiences in; Turkey Tot’s gleeful, overoptimistic take on the possibilities of detritus will ring true to anybody who’s known an ambitious collector/tinkerer, and his enthusiastic exploratory approach is heroic as well as comic. Mann’s art assembles pencil and watercolor figures in layered digital collage; there’s a breath of Jules Feiffer to her vigorous scrawls but also a sly contemporary edge to the critters’ wide, dubious eyes and slightly skewed comic poses. Young inventors will appreciate this tribute to their skills and stick-to-it-iveness, and it’ll make everybody will want to try out some tin-can stilts, so roll out the carpets and get ready for mayhem.