Two Questions about Poppy

The oth­er day I was Skyp­ing with two very dif­fer­ent schools—one a pub­lic school audi­ence of 500, the oth­er a pri­vate school with an audi­ence of six. I was asked two ques­tions, one of which I’m always asked. The oth­er ques­tion I have nev­er been asked.

Ques­tion one: “In the book Pop­py why does Rag­weed have to die?”

I am often asked that.

When I wrote Pop­py it had nev­er even entered my head that it would be part of a series, nev­er mind book three of a sev­en-book run. Thus, when I wrote Pop­py it was to be a stand-alone. The tale relates how Pop­py, at first shy, and adverse to risk, becomes bold and dar­ing. To do so effec­tive­ly I thought she need­ed to go up against a for­mi­da­ble foe. It was not enough to say that the owl, Mr. Ocax, was a dan­ger­ous enemy—he eats mice—I had to show him being so. As I wrote that book, the cru­el demise of Rag­weed cer­tain­ly made that point. It gave Poppy’s adven­ture real tension.

But a curi­ous thing hap­pened. As I went on to write the oth­er books, the spirit—if you will—of Rag­weed kept creep­ing into all the books. There is even a Rag­weed Junior in the book Pop­py and Ereth.

But after a while, I felt com­pelled to write Ragweed’s own sto­ry, and that appears in Rag­weed.

Then I began to be called upon to notice the big gap in the whole saga: that is, how did Pop­py and Rag­weed meet? That is pre­cise­ly the sto­ry I have told in the forth­com­ing Rag­weed and Pop­py which will be pub­lished this next spring.

So over­all, Rag­weed has a big role to play in the saga.

Ques­tion two: Do the crea­tures in Pop­py have last names?

That’s a ques­tion I have nev­er been asked.

One of the joys of writ­ing for young peo­ple is the imag­i­na­tive and inter­est­ing ways they respond to the sto­ries. One learns a lot. Their sense of real­i­ty is our adult’s sense of fan­ta­sy. It’s per­fect­ly under­stand­able that a child feels that a last name is impor­tant. It’s a key part of their iden­ti­ty, their fam­i­ly. Clear­ly I, (who go sole­ly under the name Avi) don’t think so. Indeed, the truth is I nev­er thought of last names for these crea­tures, although per­haps Ereth, who derived his name from his sci­en­tif­ic des­ig­na­tion (Erethi­zon Dor­sa­t­um) comes close.

But when I was asked that ques­tion, I was delight­ed by the idea, and so we dis­cussed it a bit. I sug­gest­ed they come up with last names. They promised to do so, and send them to me.

Stay tuned.