The Turkey Girl

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pollock, Penny. THE TURKEY GIRL : a Zuni Cinderella story. Illustrated by Ed Young. Boston, MA : Little Brown and Co. ISBN 0316713147

SUMMARY
A young poor girl who tends the village turkeys dreams of going to the Dance of the Sacred Bird. Her dream seems impossible until the turkeys offer to help her in thanks for her faithful care of them. In exchange for the beautiful clothes and jewels the turkeys give her, the Turkey Girl must promise to return home before the sun has set.

ANALYSIS

Penny Pollock's retelling of this Zuni story is lovely and moving. Her voice throughout the story is reverent and engaging. Many of the values and traditions of the Zuni tribes come through the story naturally, without being a focus of Pollock's attention. Many details of daily life in the pueblo are inserted seamlessly into the tale; the houses "piled atop one another," the journey of "Sun-Father" and the "yucca-cactus sandals" Turkey Girl wears.

There is little mention of Turkey Girl's physical beauty. Turkey Girl possesses other attributes that are prized above beauty; Pollock shows that she is faithful to her charges, and that she is proud, holding her head high, "as if she did not mind" when she is disdainded by the other girls at the spring. She is resourceful- she found a job as an orphan without connections and did it well, so that the turkeys were grateful to her. Pollock's prose throughout the story is filled with rich descriptions and action. It does not get dark, instead, "fingers of darkness reached across the plaza." At the dance, "The music thrummed with power. The dancers echoed the beat with their pounding feet." Pollock puts the reader in the moment with Turkey Girl, and we watch with sadness when she makes the wrong choice: "she began to wonder how it was that she should leave teh festival for mere turkeys. Were they not just gabbling birds?"

Ed Young's illustrations in oil crayon and pastel were lovely, although not always lively. The color palatte reflect the natural landscape of the Southwest, and the loose abstracted style of the color-washed drawings leaves an opening to imagine the scenes and faces of the characters as one reads. Some of the double page spreads seem open to interpretation, such as the depiction of the sacred dance, which seems at one moment to represent the legs and feet of stomping braves, and then to be the necks and heads of a flock of turkeys. However, in spite of their overall beauty, I had several problems with the illustrations. On many pages it was difficult to make out the text of the story when it was set against the illustrations. The illustrations also sometimes seemed flat, and Young made the choice not to depict some of the most exciting and action filled moments of the story. When Turkey Girl ventures into the Pueblo for water, Young shows an abstracted faceless "herald-priest" on a roof, staring down at four blobs with jars on their heads. The bustling village scene Pollock describes is static and serene in the illustration. The haunting and lovely drawings do not always seem to fit the action. Pollock describes Turkey Girl's "white doeskin dress beleted with red-and-yellow cloth" and goes on to tell of the jewels the turkeys shower her with, but the illustrations are of turkeys, turkeys and more turkeys. Turkey girl is shown covered in a dark coat, with not a speck of her dress showing. And at the dance, all we see are the ambigious turkey/feet, followed by two double page spreads of the sky, one with clouds and one with sunset, to represent the waning day. The four year old I know would have trouble staying engaged with these illustrations.

REVIEWS
"Young's spare oil crayon and pastel illustrations contain almost elemental forms that sometimes merely suggest the objects they depict. The artist makes the most of the desert's dramatic lighting, creating shadowy backgrounds that draw attention to the story's spiritual underpinnings. While his palette jumps wildly from pale shades to the most vibrant pinks, blues, and golds of a vivid desert sunset, the illustrations do not detract from Pollock's thoughtful retelling, which itself gracefully captures the Zuni landscape. Unfortunately, many pages are difficult to read due to a lack of contrast between the illustrations and the words placed on top of them." SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

"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."" PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

CONNECTIONS
This book would be a valuable component to classroom or library storytime units on either Native American Culture, specifically Zuni tribes in the Southwest, or on folktales from around the world. As part of a unit on folktales, students could compare and contrast in discussions the differences between this story and the Cinderella story they've heard before. As readers, we see that Turkey Girl suffers consequences for breaking her promise. The author notes that this story ends with "the hard truth that when we break our trust to Mother Earth, we pay a price." Do students feel that Turkey Girl paid a fair price? Have students ever accidentally told a secret? Or broke a promise? What happened? How can students act to be good stewards of the earth in their lives?