Thanksgiving: The Ernestine Mystery

While you are either anticipating your upcoming feast, devouring it as you read this (which is kind of strange), or regretting the sheer amounts of food currently making their way through your digestive tract, I have a mystery for you.  In my family it is traditional to accompany Thanksgiving with a mystery.

That is a lie.  But it is an interesting lie so it stays.

What isn’t a lie is the fact that I’ve a mystery for you.  I will set the stage:

The year is 1987-88.  I’m in my fourth grade class taught by Mrs. . .  oh, let’s say FizzWuzz (the actual teacher’s name lost to time, which is a little scary, but true).  FizzWuzz reads us many books in a given year and they tend to be memorable.  There’s the story about the girl who breaks into a home and upsets the creepy ghost ladies living there (Wicked Pigeon Ladies in the Garden by Mary Chase).  There’s the one about the boy and his annoying little turtle eating brother (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume).  And then, there is Ernestine.

Far and away, the Ernestine book is the most popular in my class.  Stories are told about a girl and her kooky family members, and one of the stories involves a turkey for Thanksgiving.  Here’s what I can recall:

1.  The book is written in what I believe is the first person, told by Ernestine.
2.  Her dad is a big do-it-yourself kind of guy.  Like the dad in Calvin & Hobbes.  He’s the kind of guy who thinks it would be great to chop down your own Christmas tree.  Or, in this particular case, kill your own Thanksgiving turkey.
3.  Hilarity ensues.

For years I have been systematically tracking down the books I read and enjoyed as a kid.  I have almost a perfect set of titles.  There are only two major gaps and one of them involves Ernestine.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out what this book was.  No searches tend to yield it.