Chester I Love You Author:Blaine M. Yorgason, Brenton G. Yorgason A Christian family debates the virtues of competition as a quiet thirteen-year-old struggles to train a playful, one-legged goose to fly before Thanksgiving day. — Who can bring turmoil out of tranquility? Who can cause more trouble than a lighted firecracker in a munitions factory? Who is as loyal as Lassie but as formidable a... more »s a runaway Mack Truck? An obstinate, lovable, one-legged goose, a Canadian honker who is destined to become the main course for Old Mr. Larson's Thanksgiving dinner.
And this beloved, not always adorable bird is named Chester. He is the charge of young Travis Tilby, who has agreed to raise the bird for his landlord's meal, but who realizes midway through the project that he loves his feathered pet with all his heart and soul.
This is when Travis decides that there is only one way he and Chester can avoid that terrible fourth-Thursday-in-November fate. Somehow he must get the goose airborne and away. But, being crippled, Chester cannot fly. Nor does he appear anxious to learn. Despite his numbered days, the feisty fowl seems content to harass the cow, attack the neighbors, and cause general havoc wherever he goes.
Meanwhile the Tilby family has several individual concerns. Sixteen-year-old Jason is madly in love, but how does he tell that to the lovely Sheryl, who seems to belong to the town bully? Steve, fifteen and overly concerned with social pressure, can't decide if he wants to be Travis's brother or not. Jenni, the youngest Tilby, is the sweetly persistent family grammarian and staunch supporter of Travis and Chester. Mom and Dad want peace with their crotchety neighbor, but Chester's attacks on her seem to have quelled all hope. And Travis, in addition to his dilemma over his goose, lacks the athletic skills or abilities "necessary" to make him accepted by his peers.
Although this is an account of Chester's misadventures, and of the family who has the dubious privilege of raising him for their landlord's pot, it is much much more. The story explores the effects of competition upon young and old alike, and it examines in detail many facts of family life--love, honesty, self esteem, discipline and responsibility. Chester, I Love You tells the story of a family's adventures and of a young boy's struggle to give and to grow, to have and to let go. « less