Let’s Talk Turkey

Too often kids learn about farms from Johnny Tractor or Old McDonald.  While cute, fun and interesting to kids, rarely do those characters accurately portray life on a farm.  Thankfully, a few authors have decided to put real farms and real farmers into children’s books. Cris Peterson comes to mind with her range of stories from Extra Cheese, Please to Amazing Grazing to Fantastic Farm Machines.  Illinois Ag in the Classroom even developed a lesson booklet with activities based on each of her books.

I’m so excited that a new author is on the scene with her first book, My Family Farm: Adam’s Turkey Farm.  Katie Olthoff and her family live on the banks of Squaw Creek (also the title of her blog) in Iowa.  She and her husband and two sons raise turkeys and she blogs about that often.

My Family Farm: Adam’s Turkey Farm is a well-written non-fiction children’s book told from her oldest son’s, Adam, point of view.  He talks about life on the farm, how they care for their turkeys, how much he likes to help his dad and how the turkeys grow.

Katie includes a glossary of turkey terms, turkey trivia and a turkey timeline chronicling the turkey’s trip from her farm to -just maybe- your Thanksgiving table.

The bonus is that older readers also get a plethora of facts and figures in addition to the story behind the farm.  I learned so much.  For example, did you know turkeys are “living dinosaurs”?  Katie writes that turkeys are closely related to Apatosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.  OR do you know why most turkeys we see on farms are white?  Well, I’ll just let you read the book to find the answer to that.

And you can . . . a free online version is available here: http://www.onthebanksofsquawcreek.com/p/my-familys-farm.html.

I’ll be sharing with my nieces and nephews after our big meal and quizzing all the adults.