Title: Farmer Goff and His Turkey Sam
Author: Brian Schatell
Genre: Animals / Contests / Fair / Food / Humor
Year Published: 1982
Year Read: 1994 (Re Read: 2018)
Publisher: J.B. Lippincott
Source: Purchased
Content Rating: Ages 5+ (Some Suggestive Themes)
Buy or Add on: Amazon // Goodreads
Now, I have a little story to tell here. When I was in the first grade, my teacher was reading us this book that involved a farmer, a turkey and a pie eating contest and for the longest time, I could not remember the name of this book and therefore, I was not able to read this book for years…. until NOW! Now, I found out that the title of this book was called “Farmer Goff and his Turkey Sam” by Brian Schatell and man, was it awesome reliving this book again after all of these years!
Farmer Goff was a farmer who lived with his wife and
his turkey Sam on a small farm and every year, Farmer Goff would take Sam to
the county fair for the annual Turkey contest where Sam would win a blue ribbon
every year. Sam also happens to be
extremely fond of Mrs. Goff’s delicious apple and turnip pies, but Farmer Goff
is always telling Sam that he has to eat his turkey feed and to not eat any of
the pies…or ELSE! One day, Mrs. Goff
baked over 294 pies for the county fair and Farmer Goff took the pies and Sam
with him to the fair. Once Farmer Goff
and Sam got into the contest, Farmer Goff started bragging to the other farmers
that his turkey Sam will win the contest since he had been training him and
feeding him nothing but turkey feed. At
this, Sam got angry at Farmer Goff since he does not like eating turkey feed
and he decided to do something about it.
Will
Sam the turkey wins the contest and will he finally eat Mrs. Goff’s famous
apple and turnip pies?
Read
this book to find out!
YAY! I finally
got the chance to read this book again after so many years! It is a shame that this book is not so well-known
among the book community and it is an even bigger shame that this book ended up
going out of print, to the point where I had to buy a library copy of this book
just to own this book (not that it is bad that it is a library copy, but that
just tells me that this book does not have its own printed edition). Brian
Schatell has done an excellent job at both writing and illustrating this
book as the tone of the book is extremely humorous and sarcastic and I loved
the way that Sam the Turkey gets back at Farmer Goff for all the abuse he has
taken from Farmer Goff. I also like the
fact that this book is a bit similar to the antics of Looney Tunes as Farmer
Goff and Sam seem to have a bit of a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner type of
relationship with each other as Farmer Goff is Wile E. Coyote and Sam is the
Road Runner. Brian Schatell’s artwork may seem a bit too simplistic, but I think
that the artwork works extremely well with the book’s simple yet sarcastic and
humorous tone. The only problem I had
with the artwork is that they say that the characters won blue ribbons, but
because of the colorings being mainly gray, light brown and red, the *BLUE* ribbons are shown to be *RED* ribbons instead.
Parents might want to know that Farmer Goff acts
extremely condescending towards Sam the turkey, especially denying him the
right to eat Mrs. Goff’s pies, even though Sam has not done anything wrong
prior to the contest. Parents should let
their children know that it is wrong to act rude towards other people and that
they should be more kind towards people who have helped them out many times.
Overall, “Farmer
Goff and His Turkey Sam” is a truly fantastic and underrated classic that anyone
who loves checking out obscure books and books with sarcastic tones will
definitely enjoy! I would recommend this
book to children ages five and up due to Farmer Goff having a bad attitude
throughout this book.
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