Turkey Creek Adventures

Laura Jo receives a doll, a magic doll, from an eccentric aunt. It opens up a world of enchantment where she can talk with the animals and see fairy-tale creatures. With her newfound friends, Laura battles flood and confronts a gnome that has taken residence in her home. Set in the Kansas plains, Turkey Creek shows rural,America where the pace is slower and life less complicated. Where mystery floats on the same breezes that cause the ripening wheat fields to ripple like a golden sea. Turkey Creek was written for the young and the young at heart. For all those people who would like to recapture lost innocence and those who believe that magic still exists in this world.

Excerpt

Laura liked coming down here, especially on hot, summer days. She and her mother would walk next to the creek, but now that she was five and all grown up--why next year she would be in first grade--her mother said Laura could come down here all by herself if she was careful of cars.

Laura walked faster. Who knows what adventures she would find there? "Who knows?" The small voice echoed her thoughts.

"Wha..." Laura never finished her sentence. Tom Cat raced along the road, chasing something--Laura didn't know what. She quickly followed to see what he had found. She stopped after she reached the shade of the trees. Tom Cat pounced, but whatever he had tried to catch ran off.

Laura slowed her pace. No point in hurrying. She reached the bridge over the creek, picked a small stone and threw it into the water. It fell with a plop. She tossed one stone after another watching the rings they made on the creeks surface.

"Help me!"

"What!" Laura jumped, dropping Cousin Jess in her surprise.

"Help! Help! Help!"

Laura turned to her right and to her left, but saw no one. She bent over to pick up the doll which had fallen in a heap at her feet.

"That won't be necessary." A small button eye winked at her. "I can get up by myself."

Laura stepped back, tripping on a twisted root. She sat down hard on the ground now eye level to the doll who sat up brushing herself off.

"You can't talk."

"I can't?"

"No, dolls don't talk."

"Dolls talk; it's just that people don't listen."

"But..."

"Help me! Won't you please help me?"

"Someone's in trouble."

Laura ignored that. "If you can talk, how come I never heard you before?"

"I told you. You weren't listening."

"How come I can hear you now?"

Tom Cat looked up from where he sat sunning himself and spoke: "I guess because you are learning how."

Stunned Laura turned to the grey tabby. "How what?"

"How to listen? It takes special people, and it takes a special ear," the doll answered.

"Help!"

To Laura's amazement, Cousin Jess stood up. "Don't you think we'd better find out what's wrong?"

Laura stood up also and nodded. She leaned out over the bridge and peered into the woods, looking for the voice's source. She saw a flash of red. A fox came into view. It ran up and down along the edge of creek's steep bank.

"Won't you please help me?" The fox panted. "It's all that rain we had the other day. My Missus and the little ones--oh please help."

"Where are they?"

"Trapped in the den. Come quickly maybe you can get them out."

Laura turned first to Cousin Jess and then to Tom Cat who was busy washing himself.

The fox darted up the small hill toward the bridge. "Follow me. Oh, please, hurry." Laura scrambled down the steep slope to the creek's edge. Cousin Jess ambled after her.

"I don't understand. Animals can't talk."

"Like dolls, I suppose."

Reviews

This book has been compared to Wind in the Willows that harkens back to an easy, more gentle time.