THE TURKEY GIRL

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pollack, Penny. THE TURKEY GIRL. 1996. Illustrated by Ed Young. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316713147

PLOT SUMMARY
A Native American Zuni girl who spends her days herding turkeys is nicknamed The Turkey Girl. In this Indian version of Cinderella, she learns why it is important to keep promises.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The similarities between this tale and the standard Cinderella includes a poor orphan girl in tattered clothing, talking animals, an upcoming dancing celebration requiring fancy clothing and a promise that will be broken.

The cultural differences in this story are evident in both the illustrations and choice of words used. The young girl pictured throughout the book is a Native American Zuni Indian. You don't get a clear picture of her features until the middle of the book, as Ed Young chooses to use pastels to suggest images. When her facial features are shown in one drawing, the black braids outlining her face suggest an Indian heritage.

Young covers all space with subtle colors but most drawings are not clearly defined to leave the definition up to the imagination of the reader. The story opens with an outside look of Turkey Girl's pueblo village, all done in light pinks, purples and white. The turkeys are simple in their design. Young uses chalk and oil crayon in tones of orange to depict the heat of the day in this Native American desert.

Penny Pollock retells this story by defining how she came upon the story using language Zuni's would use to describe the sun rising. Pollock immerses us in their culture by describing the yucca-cactus sandals, pinon nut gathering and a doeskin dress with rare shells and turkey feathers.

The only joy in the story is at the dance where Turkey Girl was not an outcast. Like the traditional story, she gets caught up in the moment and forgets her promise to leave on time. The somber moral at the end of the story reminds us of the importance of keeping one's promise.

PERSONAL OPINION
Although this is a folk tale, I would not share it with younger children. The illustrations are very subtle and the tale is told for an older audience. There were several pages that were hard to read due to the choice of print on top of the pastel colored page.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
From Publishers Weekly
"In this sobering Native American variation of the Cinderella story, the focus is not on finding true love but on remaining true to one's promises. To repay the kindness of the poor orphan girl who tends them, the tribe's turkeys dress her in a fine doeskin robe so she can attend the Dance of the Sacred Bird. So enthralled is she with the dancing that she breaks her promise to return to the turkeys before dawn and consequently loses her friends forever. Pollock frequently interrupts the narrative with references to Zuni clothing and dwellings-the girl's yucca sandals, her "turquoise necklaces and earrings of delicate beauty." In contrast, Young's (Lon Po Po) characteristically abstract illustrations evoke the sunlight and heat of the pueblo villages with few visual clues about the story itself. Except for the heroine's beautiful face, the characters and setting are hazy shadows, often appearing simply as dark silhouettes."

From School Library Journal
"In this version of the Cinderella story, a poor outcast Zuni girl who tends turkeys longs to attend the Dance of the Sacred Bird. Observing her suffering, the turkeys outfit her in a white doeskin dress adorned with rare shells, as well as turquoise necklaces and earrings, and silver bracelets. To prove that she remembers them, she promises to return from the dance "before Sun-Father returns to his sacred place." As in other retellings, she does not keep her word. At this point, the story diverges greatly from the version with which most American children will be familiar: when she finally returns home, the turkeys have abandoned her forever. As an author's note points out, the story symbolically reinforces the moral that "when we break our trust with Mother Earth, we pay a price."

AWARD
Aesop Accolade Award

CONNECTIONS

Students who enjoy this book could retell another fairy tale in their own words, using the Indian setting as a backdrop.

Students might also enjoy:

Reinhart, Jewell. DOMITILA: A CINDERELLA TALE FROM THE MEXICAN TRADITION.
ISBN 9781885008138

Reinhart, Jewell. ANGKHAT: THE CAMBODIAN CINDERELLA. ISBN 9781885008091

San Souci, Robert D. LITTLE GOLD STAR: A SPANISH AMERICAN CINDERELLA TALE.
ISBN 9780688147808