Frankenturkey

Bone Chillers #4

by Betsy Haynes

Planning to dress up like Pilgrims during the Thanksgiving celebration, Kyle and Annie prepare stovepipe hats, pies, and a turkey, until the evil Frankenturkey makes them run for their lives. Original.

Genres: Horror, Middle Grade, Thanksgiving, Childrens

134 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

ABOUT ME

Maybe it's because my feisty grandma chased tarantulas around with a broom when we lived on an oil lease property when I was a baby that made me love danger and adventure. And maybe it was my father's spending nights as a trombonist with the bands of his day and his days spent drawing sketches that sparked my artistic side. Do you suppose that because my mother stood only four feet ten inches tall that I feel like a giant at five feet? And I'm sure my FBI (Full Blooded Italian) step-father, his seven brothers and sisters and their families are responsible for my LOVE of Italian food. That's who I am. Who are you?

My First Book, Peppy The Frog That I Wrote In The 2nd Grade

I'll always be a child at heart. Whenever I close my eyes, wonderful, funny, awful, embarrassing memories of middle school/​junior high come flooding back to fill the pages of my contemporary novels. My childhood friendships and rivalries with old enemies all find their way into my books. I've even spied on my own kids for story ideas.

Unlike most kids who can't wait to grow up, I've gotten younger--at least my stories have. I've stepped into the world of 7 to 10 year olds.

I and my husband, Jim, live in Texas on Lake Lewisville north of Dallas. We are owned by our greyhound, Miller. Our favorite things to do are traveling the world and boating.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series had Slappy the ventriloquist dummy—a franchise within the franchise, which developed a cult fandom of its own—and Betsy Haynes's Bone Chillers had Frankenturkey. Bone Chillers never enjoyed the success Goosebumps did, but Frankenturkey was the iconic villain of the series, returning in a sequel later on. Sixth-grader Kyle Duggan hasn't been happy since his family moved from sunny Florida to a Massachusetts farm. He immediately became a target for Jake Wilbanks, a kid who beats him up for his lunch money every day. It doesn't help that Kyle's mother is his teacher at school, and decides her class will celebrate Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and Indians. Naturally, Kyle has to be a Pilgrim since everyone in class wants to be an Indian. Mrs. Duggan's enthusiasm bubbles over into life at home, where she and Mr. Duggan decide to raise a turkey of their own for Thanksgiving dinner. The plan is doomed to go terribly wrong.

Kyle and his eight-year-old sister Annie become emotionally attached to the turkey, a gentle animal that coos whenever he sees them. Kyle names him Gobble-de-gook, and he worries when Jake Wilbanks threatens to stop by the farm and hurt the turkey in its outdoor pen. Kyle and Annie usher Gobble-de-gook into a hidden basement, buy a frozen turkey from the store, and dress it up to look like a live bird at a distance. The ruse never would have worked, but that becomes irrelevant when lightning strikes the frozen turkey and brings it to life. The bird looks like Gobble-de-gook, except with burning red eyes, and he's mean. "Frankenturkey" even bullies Jake. Kyle knows he can't let his parents see this monster; he and Annie created Frankenturkey, and must stop the bird before he hurts someone. Will the Duggans salvage a happy first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts?

Frankenturkey goes way beyond the limits of narrative plausibility, incorporating story elements that are nothing short of cartoonish. The killer bird's genesis is over the top, but his demise is even less believable. If you demand a semi-rational foundation for your horror stories, you won't be impressed by Frankenturkey, but you might find it amusing if all you want is a light read for Thanksgiving. There are much better Bone Chillers books, but I see why this one was weird enough to especially stand out in the minds of young readers.

[Jason Harlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most popular Bone Chillers entry as far as I know, spawning both a sequel and an episode from the short-lived TV series that aired on ABC in the 90's. The story follows siblings Kyle and Annie who are new in town and raise a turkey for the sole purpose of fattening it up in time for Thanksgiving. The turkey is soon struck by lightning and (in classic Bone Chillers fashion) becomes a monster. This was nothing but fun throughout and I would recommend it to horror fans looking for a quick and fun Thanksgiving read. Though not perfect, this is super entertaining and therefore, I'll give it a 4/5. Happy Thanksgiving! Be on the lookout for my review of Thanksgiving Day Massacre soon, and then it's officially time to dive into the Christmas reads.

[Cameron Chaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a huge fan of the Bone Chillers series as a kid, consuming the entire series from 9-10 years old, but I haven't revisited it since then. I decided to reread this one to celebrate Thanksgiving in my own weird way. This really brought me back! Now, it's not great literature by any means, nor do I remember it being my favorite of the series, but it was silly good fun which is all I wanted from a book called Frankenturkey. I will absolutely be revisiting the rest of the books in the coming year!

[Pastel Paperback · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who would have thought that a turkey could be frightening? But when I tell you, I legit was afraid of Frankenturkey...

Some outdated Native American "costume" depictions to be wary of.

[Shadyside Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun one for sure. A perfect Thanksgiving Day binge read. I wasn’t a fan of the whole bullying trope that took up the first third of the book but once we were introduced to Frankenturkey, I was hooked! The book might be 4 stars, but that ending was 5 stars for sure. Last 40 pages or so were pure chaos, I loved it!

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up Goosebumps was everywhere in the 90s and where theres success there's always going to be copycats. Bone chillers was one of the many series that tried to captolize on Goosebumps success but in all honesty Bone chillers was the first series I've ever came across that was like Goosebumps that I've wanted to read. but deep down I knew I was betraying my favorite series so I never read any until now .Frankenturkey stars our main protagonist Kyle and his little sister Annie who just moved from Florida to Massachusetts . They both hate it .Masschusets is cold, dark and lonely .On top of that Kyle is always bullied by this kid Jake Willbanks so much so ,that he hides from him on the way to the bus stop and that just makes him madder. To make matters worse Kyles mom teaches his class and comes up with an idea for the kids to dress up as pilgrims and native Americans about the native Americans and that's where the turkey comes into play .Kyles parents think it would be a good idea for the kids to raise and eat a turkey for Thanksgiving .So they go to a feed store and find a turkey and name him Gobble de gook, even tho there parents tell them not to . The good news is this helps the kids because now they get a ride to school everyday so they won't be late. This infuriates Jake so he says he is going to "wring that dumb birds neck.This makes both kids want to save Gobble De Gook from the bully and Thanksgiving. They come up with a plan. They will make a fake turkey with feathers from a pillow, a Halloween mask ,coat hangers and a frozen turkey. All is good until a thunderstorm comes along and lightening strikes the turkey bringing him to life .This is where Frankenturkey comes into play. Frankenturkey is mean. He hurts there dog. He chases after them in a car and even stalks them at school. He also has sharp claws that can extract making him very dangerous. I really enjoyed frankenturkey .It honestly didn't feel at all like a rip off of Goosebumps.It felt more like a story inspired by Goosebumps .It is a slow burn for the scares but the second climax and ending is absolutely perfect it comes full circle at the end and it made me excited for Thanksgiving. I don't really have any negatives other then plausibility, but it's frankenturkey I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, but REALLY dated. I cringed several times when they talked about the play they were putting on....

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only Thanksgiving book that matters tbh

FULL REVIEW: https://spongey444.wordpress.com/2020...

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely an entertaining read and an idea that was a lot of fun! I would definitely recommend this to others.

[Austin Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an alright entry in the BC series. I like the episode adaptation of this one a bit more.

[RVGSteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

In honor of Thanksgiving just over the horizon, I decided to revisit a childhood favorite of mine. It came out 27 years ago (!) in November of 1994 during the height of the Goosebumps craze. It was Bone Chillers #4: Frankenturkey. I remember really liking it and Betsy Haynes’ Bone Chillers in general. It didn’t quite topple Goosebumps but I found that I liked Bone Chillers more than the other GB clones of the mid ‘90s, such as Graveyard School, Deadtime Stories and Shadow Zone.

Kyle and Annie Duggan are uprooted from Florida as their family moved to Massachusetts (how many of these YA horror books begin with a family moving? Ha!) Naturally, Kyle hates it and has trouble making new friends. He gets bullied and to make matters worse, his 6th grade teacher is his own mom. The Duggans want to raise their own turkey before killing it for Thanksgiving dinner, so they go and buy one. But the kids grow fond of Gobble de Gook, so Kyle fashions together a bogus turkey with a frozen bird from the local grocery store, some wire hangers and his old Halloween mask. On the night of his grand construction, there is a terrible storm…

Nothing bad could happen, right?

Lightning strikes the bogus bird and Frankenturkey is born. It’s alive!!! A nice nod to Frankenstein in the most bizarre and ludicrous matter, but that’s what makes it a cult favorite of mine. It’s just so weird and actually has a few creepy parts, too.

I can see why 11 year old me loved it 27 years ago. Now I’m 38 and I still enjoyed it. Makes me want to revisit the rest of the Bone Chillers series!

[Julius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Bone Chiller books when I was around twelve. Man oh man, those things were great! However, as is sometimes the case with things that happened to one's self years ago, I don't remember many details of the books. *Tears* But I do remember that I really, REALLY, liked them.
Strange to say, Frenkenturkey is one of the Bone Chiller books that I can recall better than the others. Basically a couple kids bring to life a turkey around Thanksgiving time by wacky science. The turkey then goes on a rampage and tries to kill them. The unholy creature even has knives protruding from its feet to preform its grisly deed. Ain't that just wacky?! And AWESOME!!! (And messed up, but hey...)
Great children's book. But be warned, it might scare your little ones. I myself will try to revisit these books sometime in the future.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

2024 review: Still the best middle grade Thanksgiving horror book. Well written and doesn’t take half the book to get to the action. The evil turkey was brilliantly described and so terrifying. Yes you have to suspend your belief a bit to believe this is even possible. But it gave me those childhood feels where I would have imaginary fears of things like the basement.

2020 review: The best Goosebumps book that never was.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the Thanksgiving season, I decided to finally read Frankenturkey. This is the most popular Bonechiller of the series and the only one to get a sequel, only three books later in fact. Is it any good? Well, there’s solid stuff to be offered from this entry. There’s some great atmosphere and the writing is decent overall. The concept is intriguing enough and the climax is really good, and the ending to this one was great thematically albeit predictable. There’s a character in here—Jake—that undergoes some actual growth, a rarity for the genre this entails. He starts off as a bully and evolves into a person who realized themself and even made mild peace with the person they mainly fucked with. It’s awesome to see and a bit empowering. There’s also some fun segments in here. However, the book has some large faults. The main two kids feel a bit neanderthal-ish. They make some choices that feel like they’re either begging to get caught or are just blatantly dumb, like the initial act that leads to Frankenturkey’s existence—which was bound to fail had not God intervened, it seems with the extreme chance that The Big T came to be (“I’m crine; you don’t know him like that” ahh), which bothers me in itself especially with it reoccurring… but hey, lightning strikes twice I guess. The pacing is sluggish and the boom definitely had its dull points, especially in the middle; this thing either needed to have more going on or have been shorter. And one of my biggest gripes—and bear with me—is the idiotic morality of the kids in regard to Gobbley-whatever his name was. We as a species are biologically made to eat animals. They’re quite literally made of food. It’s called life. I don’t blame the kids in the book for following the “we can’t kill the turkey and eat it because that’s wrong” mindset, as it’s oversaturated bullshit in media… I rather blame the book. It makes zero evolutionary sense and it pisses me off when media conveys a message that is blatantly false via science, let alone human history and what is traditionally commonplace. This did just that and it pushed my buttons a bit, though I can forgive it for that since it wasn’t to the extreme that The Tale of the Hunted did from AYAOTD went (aka the worst kids horror episode ever made). Overall, 6/10. A yawner but not bad. Had some moral stupidity and character issues + pacing problems but it was still a nice seasonal read with a decent character arc thrown in there amongst generally good meat. I’m stuffed 😂 the din’ 😂 you don’t know ‘em like fat (alright I’ll stop).

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Halloween, but I'm also already looking forward to Thanksgiving season.

My second foray into the Bone Chillers series, and it remains very reminiscent of Goosebumps—which, let's be honest, does not really translate to "good." The first half was pretty poor, particularly everything with Jake the Generic Bully. The second half picked up surprisingly well, even including a character arc or two! So I'm rounding up to 3 stars.

The premise is very dumb. Not just "evil monster turkey," but the fact that it's just a store-bought turkey and some junk brought to life by Random Lightning. You could write that off as necessary for the parody, but then Frankenturkey is defeated by Random Lightning AGAIN. Which somehow perfectly cooks him while seemingly vaporizing every non-turkey part of him? C'mon, Haynes, you're just being lazy. You know, if we're riffing Frankenstein, I kind of wish she'd just leaned into the stupid. Have the kids bring it to life on purpose, put Kyle in a lab coat and have him scream "IT'S ALIIIIIVE!" Annie can be the hunchbacked Igor.

No real attempts at a lesson or theme with Frankenturkey himself, though he only becomes aggressive after Jake tries to strangle him. That kind of ties into Victor Frankenstein's mistreatment of the Monster. You could have done something with that.

I can't relate to the kids moving from Florida to Massachusetts and complaining how cold it is. One thing I love about this time of year is that we finally get temperatures below 80 degrees.

Anyway, it's neither well-written enough to be good nor stupid enough to be stupid-good, but it's alright for what it is.

[Shaun Stanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankenturkey is the 4th installment in the children’s horror series Bone Chillers. It was written by Betsy Haynes and originally published in 1994

Kyle and Annie have recently moved from Florida to Massachusetts. Struggling to fit in at school and find new traditions, their mother decides that they dress up as Pilgrims for Thanksgiving and butcher a turkey raised in their backyard. The two kids quickly grow attached Gobble-de-Gook and hatch a plan to create a fake bird to trick their parents. Crafting their bird out of a Halloween mask, coat hangers, feather, and a frozen turkey they are horrified when a freak lightning strike brings this monstrosity to life - FRANKENTURKEY!

I was a big fan of the Bone Chillers series growing up. I remember finding them a bit goofier than Goosebumps but still very much enjoying them. I haven’t revisited the series since I was a kid but I randomly remembered the Frankenturkey books in particular and this was the perfect time to revisit! Like I said, the series is much goofier than Goosebumps and makes even more ridiculous leaps to the supernatural and bizarre. The two Frankenturkey boos follow all the cliches of the genre: parents who don’t pay attention to what’s going around them, bullies, protagonists (who are usually new to town) trying to fit in, annoying siblings, mischievous pets, quirky business owners, plans that go wrong, and fake out scares. All that said, I still enjoyed just how absurd yet comical these two book were.

[Chen Pink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book quote: “Look who’s coming to Thanksgiving dinner…”

“I always wondered as a kid whether lightning could bring an object to life when it struck it!” ~ Chen Pink, reviewer of ‘Frankenturkey’

Out of all the books I read in this ‘Bone Chiller’ series, this book cover looks the scariest of all, especially the look of the screw on the turkey’s neck. Flashing back to the 90s when I first read this book, the shiver in my body is still felt today. Imagine that you use a frozen chicken, some coat hangers, a scary mask, and the feathers from your kid’s pillow to make an artificial chicken that looks real to other kids, and then it turns out to be alive after a strike of lightning. Here you are, the story that will spook you into thinking twice about making something under the lightning!

[E.D. Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly really enjoyed this book, not completely sure why, but I did. It's fun, It works because Frankenturkey takes a classic horror monster idea and stuffs it into a holiday story, to sell more books. Also, I love books about food coming to life. Frankenturkey is a wonderfully dumb spin on Frankenstein and I respect it, kinda. Either way, it was fun while it lasted. I wish there was a second Frankentur.... Oh wait, there is.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm leaving a 5 star review because this is the first book I remember buying and reading. It was the mid 90's, I was 9 years old, and my parents gave me a handful of singles to take with me to the Scholastic Book fair at school. It's strangely reassuring to know that even at that young age I was drawn to horror.

[Christopher Rupel · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://soundcloud.com/the-rupel/drun...

[Danna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[jess]

frankenturkey added to the blunt rotation

[Jared Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

it been years since I read any of her book since i was 8 or 10 years old, I just recently bought four of the bone chillers, for girlfriend god son, because of course he doesn’t need anymore toys and i wanted him to have a take on Betsy stories, besides just goosebumps series. This book was one of the first books i have gotten from the series so and i just read to relive my child hood once more.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keeping my rating the same at a 4.5 stars. This is like a Goosebumps book and a B Horror movie met up for Thanksgiving. Absolutely ridiculous plot, but a lot of fun. This time around I noticed that Annie is eight but somehow goes to Middle School? Interesting. Gobble-de-gook is adorable. Outdated terms and descriptions of Native Americans because the 90s.

Review from 2022:

I read this one as a kid but didn’t remember much about it so I decided this November would be a great time to revisit it.

This book is basically a kid’s version of a Thanksgiving-themed B-Horror movie. The story itself is absolutely ridiculous, but in the most fun way! I ended up really enjoying the story and characters of this one, especially the precious Gobble-de-gook. This book also explores bullying and did a great depiction of it for someone Kyle’s age. There was more depth than I was expecting, especially when it came to Kyle and his bully later on. Will be interesting to see what happens in the sequel!

Since this was written in the 90s, outdated terms and descriptions were used for Native Americans.

4.5 stars!

[Kenneth Winfield Emerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book for years, but never actually read it. This year, as Thanksgiving approached, I decided to give it a try. I knew that "Bone Chillers" was an obvious "Goosebumps" knock-off series, but honestly, it's as good if not better than some "Goosebumps" books I've read.

It's surprisingly dark for a children's horror novel, and I found myself wanting to read more every time I put it down. If you're a fan of "Goosebumps," or just a general horror fan of a certain age, I highly recommend this one.

[Erin *Proud Book Hoarder* · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a review for this one up but I think Goodreads glitched or something, because it's not here now. The book was adorable, hilarious, and I loved every second of it. The ending was sweet and I felt bad for the original turkey so glad the family decided to change their mind. The way parents think to raise children in positive ways stuns me sometimes. The lightning and nod to Frankenstein had me laughing aloud. Throw in the traumatized bully and this gets even better. What fun.

[Cws]

SF-Hay

[Malcolm Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

very...very...very..AWESOME!!!!