‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving-Dav Pilkey October 23, 2007
First of all, we need to give kids some credit. They truly do realize that ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving is just a fun take-off on the Christmas “‘Twas…”. The book (As one person seems to purport.) is not a “Let’s all become vegans!” platform nor is it a recommendation for children to steal. Farmer Mack Nugget (Gotta love the name.) does zone a bit into the dark side with his ax-planation, but it hasn’t proven to be too scary for any students to whom I’ve read the book.
Eight children board a school bus for a field trip to a turkey farm. Once there, they romp. They play. They gobble up all the fun they can. One little naive child then notices Farmer Mack Nugget’s (Still loving it.) ax. “What is it for?” His graphic explanation has reality rearing its ugly, wattled head. The clever children concoct a scheme to save the day by tricking the unfortunately unobservant adults and wattling, I mean, waddling back on the bus. If we exclude the fiendish farmer, the tail, er, tale ends satisfactorally. That is, it all ends satisfactorally unless you’re of the faction that feels there are children out there just waiting for their next visit to Farmer Mack Nugget’s (Ah, you know.) farm to exercise some perversive dalliance in delinquency. The students love this rhyming book and after all these years of reading it to them, I have yet to hear that Tommy or Gertrude has been picked up on charges of turkey “stuffing.”
“Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving 
Written and Illustrated by Dav Pilkey
Accelerated Reader RL 4.0