by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 11, 2010

Phil Bildner has written children's picture books based on true-life sports stories. In "The Shot Heard Round The World," he described Brooklyn baseball fans watching the all-New York playoff series in 1951. And he also won a Texas-Bluebonnet Award for another baseball story - "Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy." But in 2008 he described the most local competition of all. It's the annual "Turkey Bowl" - a football game that's played by a little boy's family every year before Thanksgiving dinner!

Aunt Yvonne and cousin Corey remember years so cold that Corey's beard started to freeze. But on the sidelines little Ethan and his best friends still "shivered and shouted from the first snap to the final score." That year they'd called the game "The Ice Bowl," and another year it was so rainy that the game was renamed "the Mud Bowl." But Ethan and his friends still cheered for the sidelines "during every last mud-splattered play."

It looks like fun - especially last year's game, which was redubbed "The Fog Bowl." (Uncle Zack can't figure out which direction to run, and cousin Ryan ran right into the goalpost!) "But this year, when those first familiar scents of mashed potatoes, candied yams, and macaroni and cheese wafted up the stairs and woke Ethan, he realized the Turkey Bowl was a whole new ball game." For the first time in his life, he's finally big enough to play in the game himself.

Phil Bildner's always been a heart-tugging writer, and I really liked the way he included details about fun personal moments from the family's life. Downstairs mother is cooking a golden turkey and a glazed ham, along with a selection of  three different pies. Ethan rushes down in his favorite football jersey, where he's greeted by surprisingly dour faces on his father and grandfather. The roads are snowed in, and his mother warns him "Thanksgiving may be a little different this year."

Ethan and all his friends "sat atop the bleachers and stared gloomily at the empty, snow-covered schoolyard." But their disappointment soon turns to improvisation when - guess what? - they realize they can play football on their own.  "On one white, wacky play, the fumbled football disappeared beneath a mountain of bodies and snow!" They dive for passes all afternoon, and Ethan finally catches a deep bomb that's thrown by his best friend, Alex. He catches a touchdown. And just then all his relatives arrive to share the moment with him.

In the end, it's not only a story about the joy of football. It's also about being together as a family.

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