A Boy and a Goose Need a Miracle in Chester, I Love You

I have spent almost every Thanksgiving at home, usually with a few guests, sometimes with just my immediate family. However, there were a couple Thanksgivings when we celebrated somewhere else. On one of those occasions, we went to my grandparents' house. Oddly, what really stands out from that long-ago year is watching a made-for-TV Disney movie called The Thanksgiving Promise, in which a boy raises a one-legged goose for his neighbor to eat on Thanksgiving. Of course, it doesn't take long for the boy and the bird to bond, and young Travis hatches a plot to teach Chester how to fly before the fateful day arrives. But can it be done?

I couldn't find that special when I looked for it, but I did run across Chester, I Love You, the novel that inspired it. This edition has a photo from the movie on the cover and an acknowledgment to Disney on the inside. Written by brothers Blaine and Brenton Yorgason, this novel, inspired by their own childhood experiences, follows Travis Tilby, a scrawny kid who is always getting picked on by his peers and a bullying gym teacher.

Travis lives on a humble farm with two athletic older brothers and a gentle little sister, but his is a largely solitary life until Chester comes along. He and the goose seem to understand one another, and they soon become inseparable. He's certainly doing a good job of keeping the misfit goose in good health, but his personal goal of helping him escape his fate seems less and less attainable as the months speed onward from May to November. What Travis needs is a miracle.

This book is written with a folksy narrative style, and it is populated with characters who make colorful remarks like "Arid land-o-Goshen!" and spontaneously burst into sermons at every opportunity. The Tilbys are a hard-working, God-fearing family, and matters of faith play an important role in the story. Sometimes of the parents' dialogue comes across as a bit clunky, since it seems that what they are saying is almost aimed more at the reader than the child they are addressing. The book also gets rather repetitive at times, and some of the parental heart-to-hearts slow down the action a bit.

Nonetheless, this is a family you want to root for, and it's particularly easy to sympathize with Travis. Many coming of age stories involve a child killing a beloved pet, and I've always found that rather grotesque. Travis's parents are conflicted as to how to deal with their son's plans. They know that killing Chester will utterly devastate him, but they don't want to teach him to shirk responsibility. I confess I found their sense of honor frustrating, especially after Travis tells Mr. Larson, the landlord who gave him Chester, about his plans and he agrees that there will be no hard feelings if Chester flies away before Thanksgiving. What will really be gained by forcing Travis to kill an animal he has spent months trying to protect?

While Travis is the primary focus of the story, there's also a nice subplot involving his older brother Jason and Sheryl, a sweet girl at school who he believes barely knows he exists. The plot thread showing how they relate to each other demonstrates how easy it is to get signals crossed in matters of romance and follows the theme of not backing away from a challenge, whether it's teaching a one-legged goose to fly or expressing your feelings to a longstanding crush. The youngest Tilby, Jenni, adds sweetness to the tale with her pure-heartedness, while second-oldest child Steve is a fount of unexplained animosity. His main purpose in the tale seems to be so Mrs. Tilby can encourage Travis to try her "kill him with kindness" strategy for winning over adversaries; there's a good lesson in there, but Steve never really feels as fully-formed as the other Tilbys.

Although I occasionally found the writing to be excessively clunky or preachy, I mostly enjoyed this story of perseverance and devotion. It would be interesting to see the movie again; I suspect that this is one of those cases in which I like the movie better than the book, but the novel is still a worthwhile read, especially for this time of year.