(++++) YOU BE YOU

Turkey in Disguise. By Adam Wallace. Illustrated by Mike Moran. Silver Dolphin Books. $12.99. 

     The idea that every child is absolutely perfect just as he or she is, that everyone will accept everyone else unquestioningly without any need to pretend to be something that one is not, is so foundational to children’s books that it is somewhat amazing to find the trope still going strong. But it is, and Turkey in Disguise is the umpteenth (maybe umpty-umpteenth) version of the redoubtable lesson that you never have to pretend to be anything or anyone but yourself. 

     Shakespeare figured it out (“this above all, to thine own self be true”), and one can imagine Elizabethan parents using those words or similar ones to encourage their kids to be themselves at all times. On a much lower level of poetry, Adam Wallace reiterates the longstanding lesson in Turkey in Disguise – and benefits from some hilariously apt renditions by Mike Moran of the various disguises referenced in the book’s title (Hamlet would probably not have been improved by an illustrator). 

     The plot here is absolutely typical for a “be yourself” book for kids up to age eight: Turkey, with her solid coat of dull brown feathers, just knows she won’t be accepted at the upcoming November Ball and will have a miserable time unless she makes herself more attractive and intriguing. But how to do that? Enlisting the help of her friends – Duck, Pig and Sheep – Turkey embarks on a beyond-the-ridiculous foray into dress-up and disguise. It starts simply enough – paint some spots on her feathers, put on a robe and crown, that sort of thing. But her friends vote no. So things get weirder: Turkey squishes an ice-cream cone on her head to look like a unicorn – but leaves the ice cream in the cone, with predictably messy results. A later attempt to be a clown, complete with pies to push into her friends’ faces, is no tastier. 

     The weirdness expands. Turkey dresses like a ninja and her friends suddenly cannot see her. She walks like a zombie and scares them out of the house. And so it goes: “She ate a croissant so she seemed to be FRENCH./ Then somehow disguised herself as a PARK BENCH.” We are now fully into bizarretown: Moran draws the bench simply as what it is – a bench. No sign of Turkey anywhere. How did the transformation happen? Neither Wallace nor Moran bothers to explain: they are too busy moving onward into areas of increasing weirdness, such as Turkey dressing up as the sun and giving her friends an actual sunburn – then turning herself into “a STINKY BIG TOE.” 

     Kids will have a wonderful time laughing at the ever-mounting absurdity of Turkey’s disguises (at one point she transforms into a box of popcorn) – and young readers will figure out where the book is going well before it actually gets there: fed up with all the nonsense, Turkey’s friends eventually yell a very loud and emphatic “STOP!” They then deliver the lesson that is always at the heart of books like this: “…you’re beautiful as you are./ You don’t need a DISGUISE.” And Turkey, relieved to be free of the pressure that comes with figuring out near-infinite variations on being something else, decides to go to the November Ball exactly as she is, as herself. And of course she has a wonderful time – lesson learned, lesson delivered to young readers, and lesson presumably kept in Wallace’s and Moran’s mental arsenal (or that of other writer/artist teams) for the umpty-umpty-umpteenth variation on the identical theme. 

     As a bonus, there is a perforated page at the back of the book that kids can tear out (gently: adults may need to help), maybe copy so there are several identical ones, and then try their hand at creating silly disguises for Turkey (or maybe just drawing her in cute colors). The one fly-in-the-ointment element worth noting about Turkey in Disguise is that it is a good thing the book is aimed at ages up to eight and not beyond – because as every preteen and teenager knows (and every adult knows even better), there comes a time when we do don disguises before heading out into the world, deciding just who we want or need to be on any given day, in any given set of circumstances. But that’s a gobble for an entirely different sort of book.