The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow

Turkey Hollow is a picturesque town where hundreds of years ago, unbeknownst to the citizens, a meteorite landed nearby a small brook on the outskirts of town. One Thanksgiving, while young Timmy Henderson practices his guitar, he’s accompanied by strange, unearthly, musical sounds. That meteorite wasn’t a rock at all but an egg holding seven furry, goofy monsters, each with a unique musical sound. After the initial shock, Timmy befriends the lovable creatures following him all around Turkey Hollow. Not everyone takes a liking to the visitors though and it’s up to Timmy to protect his new friends and save Thanksgiving!

Many of us know and love the wondrous things that came from the brilliant mind that was Jim Henson.  The influence and adoration of all his work is still prevalent today, and will likely continue to for generations to come.  This week, I had the pleasure of reading one thing he created that never came to life.  Now, thanks to Roger Langridge, we get to see what we missed with The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow.

This previously unseen story is one that looked to tell a tale of Timmy, a young boy who discovers a group of adorable musical monsters who landed in his small New England town many moons ago.  Quickly becoming friends with them, he then has to defend and even rescue them from the local old grump, Mr. Sump who claims they’re bad news.  Along with his sister, kooky aunt and even the sheriff/mayor/store owner, Timmy heroically works to find out just who the bad news in the town really is.

The wonderful artwork that Langridge uses to bring this screenplay to life is exactly suited to a Henson project.  It’s like something out of a book I’d have read as a child, as if it was originally meant to be a comic in the first place.  The one thing that made it difficult to completely translate is the heavy musical theme, but that’s to no fault of the artist.  There’s only so much you can do to illustrate music.

I really enjoyed this adaptation of this lost piece of Henson work and applaud Langridge for letting us experience it.  While this may just be a fun, child oriented story, all of us can benefit from the feel good nature of it.  For many, it will be almost like a trip down memory lane, and is worth the read just to make you smile.

For more on The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow or other Archaia titles, check out Archaia.

Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer..