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Summary
Summary
It's Thanksgiving, and that means it's time for...football!
Ethan has waited his whole nine-year-old life to be old enough to play in the annual family Turkey Bowl football game. This is his year. He wakes up Thanksgiving Day, dresses in all of his football finest, and runs downstairs to greet the team -- his whole family.
But the kitchen isn't full of aunts and cousins and uncles -- a blizzard has snowed them out. And it looks like the Turkey Bowl just isn't meant to be this year. After all, who could play football in a blizzard?
Ethan, that's who!
Author Notes
Phil Bildner received a B. A. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1990 and a J. D. from New York University School of Law in 1993. He was admitted to the bar in both New York and New Jersey and got a job as an associate at a large Manhattan law firm. After practicing law for a year, he decided to pursue a career in education. He received a master's degree in early childhood and elementary education from Long Island University in 1995. He stopped teaching in 2006 in order to write full time.
His picture books include Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, Twenty-One Elephants, Turkey Bowl, The Hallelujah Flight, and The Soccer Fence. Marvelous Cornelius won the 2016 Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children's Literature. His young adult novels include Playing the Field and Busted. He also co-created the Sluggers series with Loren Long.
In 2007, he began chaperoning student-volunteer trips to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. He co-founded The NOLA Tree, a non-profit service organization.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-The duo who created Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy (2002) and The Shot Heard 'Round the World (S & S, 2005) offer another sports story. Every Thanksgiving, Ethan's relatives arrive and, through mud, cold, or fog, they play a wild game of football. Ethan and the neighborhood kids watch the action and long for the day when they can join in. The year that they are finally old enough to play, nine-year-old Ethan leaps out of bed and into his uniform, only to discover that a blizzard has closed roads and the family won't be coming. The disappointed boy gathers his friends and they trudge to the school football field, now covered in snow. In the "ah-ha" moment of the tale, they realize that they have enough kids to play themselves, and the wild and joyous snow-filled game that ensues carries on the tradition of the Turkey Bowl. As Ethan catches a final touchdown pass, he realizes that his relatives have indeed made the trip and are cheering him on from the sidelines. Payne's muted, full-color illustrations capture the disappointment and joy the characters experience and feature plenty of gridiron action. Perfect for reading aloud at holiday time, this lively story will resonate year-round with sports fans.-Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Ethan and his friends have grown up watching Ethan's family's Turkey Bowl, just waiting till they're old enough to join in. But snow is falling on Thanksgiving Day, and it looks like Ethan's relatives won't make it after all. But, "We can have our own Turkey Bowl," declares Ethan, and the game begins. Payne clothes his lumpy-nosed children in antique football gear and high-tops, milking both past and present Bowls for all the slapstick available. The family's devotion to football and to one another comes through loud and clear in this celebration of that other Thanksgiving tradition. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
For his first eight years, Ethan hasn't been old enough to play in his family's annual Thanksgiving football game. But he's got memories aplenty, like when it was so cold they called it the Ice Bowl, and when it was so rainy it became the Mud Bowl. Finally old enough to play, Ethan bounds downstairs only to be dismayed by the news that a huge snowstorm has made the roads too dangerous for the family to get through. He and the neighborhood kids glumly watch an empty, snowed-out field, until Ethan decides they can have their own game no matter the conditions. The story bounces from exuberance to despondency and right back, much like the best football games. Payne's paintings have a suitable old-timey, Norman Rockwell-esque quality to them, with plucky kids bedecked in ancient leather helmets and too-big pads. A nostalgiac tribute to one of the great sports traditions of all time: the marriage of turkey and tackling shared by families on Thanksgiving.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2008 Booklist
