Poppy & Ereth

Pop­py, a deer mouse, and Ereth, a grum­bling por­cu­pine, have been the best of friends for as long as the ani­mals of Dim­wood For­est can remem­ber. An unstop­pable pair ever since they defeat­ed the tyran­ni­cal owl, Mr. Ocax, Pop­py and Ereth have enjoyed many hap­py adven­tures togeth­er. But when a swirl of bit­ter win­ter storms buries Dim­wood For­est in snow and Pop­py’s hus­band, Rye, dies sud­den­ly, all Pop­py wants is some pri­va­cy. “Danc­ing door­knobs,” Ereth mut­ters to no one in par­tic­u­lar, “how can she not want to see me?” As he wad­dles back to his log, Ereth fears he may have lost his dear friend forever.

But Ereth has not lost Pop­py, at least not yet. As the ground begins to thaw, life returns to Dim­wood For­est and Pop­py ven­tures out in search of excite­ment. Sud­den­ly, swooped up by Luci the bat, Pop­py is fly­ing high over the for­est and unex­pect­ed­ly embarks on her great­est adven­ture. Mean­while, Ereth, left to his own devices, man­ages to con­vince him­self that Pop­py has died and, as only the old por­cu­pine can do, sets about to give her the best memo­r­i­al ser­vice the for­est has ever known.

The last episode of the Pop­py sto­ries, Pop­py and Ereth is a rous­ing adven­ture befit­ting one of the great hero­ines of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture as well as a final, heart­warm­ing cel­e­bra­tion of the life, love, and friend­ship of two most unlike­ly companions.