The Perfect Thanksgiving

It seems to be Thanksgiving time. I understand that this is a holiday set aside for eating lots of turkey and pies and thinking about all the things that a person should be thankful for. I’m hearing all about turkeys and Pilgrims and Native Americans and turkeys and feasts and family time and turkeys. The kids at school are making headbands with feathers, and turkeys with their hands, and turkeys with their feet, and eating turkey for lunch. The Mom Person is going through the recipe drawer and talking on the phone a lot about who’s bringing what. And I’m walking around drooling and no one seems to notice!

Well, today isn’t Thanksgiving. Although I am thankful, because it is Perfect Picture Book Friday over at Susanna Hill’s House. And I get to share in this event! I don’t know if she’s having turkey or not. I hope so! Just in case, I am bringing turkey – for the Perfect Thanksgiving!! The Perfect Thanksgiving
by Eileen Spinelli
illustrated by JoAnn Adinolfi
published by Henry Holt and Co. in 2003

Themes – Thanksgiving! Family!

Suitable for young and old alike! All the family!

It begins –
Abigail Archer’s family
is perfect in every way.
Never is this more obvious
than on Thanksgiving Day.

This is a hilarious look at Thanksgiving through the eyes of one little girl. It’s told in perfectly wondrous rhyme with perfectly fabulous illustrations. And features a perfectly silly hand-print turkey and a perfectly artsy turkey.

The narrator compares her friend Abigail’s family holiday with her own family’s get together. At Abigail’s house everything is PERFECT. The table settings, the turkey cooked to perfection, the well dressed, well behaved, polite family holding hands around the PERFECT table – all PERFECT! At the narrator’s house, we see PERFECT chaos! Burnt turkey and wailing smoke alarms, crying kids, gravy and milk being spilled, belching and chomping and slurping everywhere. (It all sounds very much like my house!)

The narrator feels that Abigail has the PERFECT mother! Abigail’s mother wears an organdy dress with pearls and fancy shoes. She has fancy whirls on her homemade pie and her Jello mold doesn’t quiver. The narrator’s Mom wears jeans and fuzzy slippers. (Looks eerily like my Mom Person!) She serves store bought pie with no whipped topping and her Jello mold quivers!!

There is more, and more, and more about how different the two families are – But it turns out that the families have one very important element that is common to both — the LOVE that radiates from both!! And that’s something to be Thankful for!!

This book goes PERFECTLY with all the Thanksgiving activities that have been going on at school the last couple of weeks. Making turkeys and talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans and the Land that we all live in. And it offers a PERFECT opportunity to talk about our families traditions and how different they might be and how much alike!

I hope you have a PERFECT Thanksgiving celebration with your PERFECT family and are wrapped in the LOVE that I’m sure will be there.

Here is my pawprint Turkey –

And one of the many Turkey songs I have been hearing over, and over, and over —

And now you might want to visit Ms Hill’s blog and see if she’s serving some turkey over there! I’m sure that she will have some other fine Perfect Picture Books for you to check out!

I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!
From MY PERFECT family to yours!!
Your friends
Walker, Electra, and St. Rhythm!