Name: The Great Turkey Walk
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9780786236589

Kathleen Karr

In 1860, a somewhat simple-minded fifteen-year-old boy attempts to herd one thousand turkeys from Missouri to Denver, Colorado, in hopes of selling them at a profit.

The Great Turkey Walk

Yeeeeeee-haw! Git along, little . . . turkeys? Big, brawny Simon Green, who's just completed third grade (for the fourth time), may not be book smart, but he's nobody's fool. When it's time to be done with school and make his way in the world, Simon hatches a plan that could earn him a bundle. He intends to herd a huge flock of bronze turkeysall the way from his home in eastern Missouri to the boomtown of Denver, where they'll fetch a mighty price. In the year 1860, the hazards of such a trek are many - how does one shepherd the birds across a river, for instance? - but Simon is undaunted. Accompanied by a faithful drover, and eventually to be joined by two boon companions, he undertakes the biggest journey of his young life, in this high-spirited Wild Wild West adventure by an acclaimed author of historical fiction.

Sarah Sammis

grew up in a post World War II suburb. It was built over the course of twenty years (give or take). My house was finished in the mid 1960s and my grandmother's house was finished the year I was born. If I wanted to see nature I had to either hike into the canyons that separated the different neighborhoods or I had to go the beach or the mountains. Nature wasn't something that showed up in our backyards except for the odd rattle snake, opossum or skunk.

Where I live now, I'm in an area that defies categorization. It has urban elements, suburban elements and huge expanses of rural areas. Living right on the edge of where things to rural we share our yard and roadways with nature.

We have deer, owls, raccoons, turkey vultures and turkeys. The turkeys are the creatures we see the most often. There's a flock that lives behind the local elementary school.

So you can understand my interest in reading The Great Turkey Walk by Kathleen Karr. It's a historical fiction about a young man who buys the excess turkeys to walk them across the prairies to Denver where there was a high demand for fresh meat and poultry.

I've read other stories like this but usually the animals being herded to market are cattle. Reading about the special tenacity needed to convince a flock of turkeys to walk that distance was fascinating. It was also funny and heart warming.

Along the way the main character meets up with an escaped slave and a young woman left orphaned after her entire family died from fever caught out on their prairie homestead. Each person who joins the walk has a unique skill to help make the enterprise a success.

The Great Turkey Walk

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