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Poppy’s Return

Poppy's Return

Harper­Collins, 2005
illus­trat­ed by Bri­an Flo­ca
Book 6 of 7

buy the book 

audio book nar­rat­ed by 
John McDonough

The Poppy Books
Ragweed
Book 1 of 7
Ragweed & Poppy
Book 2 of 7
Poppy
Book 3 of 7
Poppy & Rye
Book 4 of 7
Ereth's Birthday
Book 5 of 7
Poppy & Ereth
Book 7 of 7
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What’s this book about?

Pop­py returns … with big trou­ble. Fam­i­ly trouble.

Pop­py and Rye don’t know what to do about their son Rag­weed Junior’s atti­tude. He is rude, he is crude, and he has dyed his fur to look like Mephi­tis, his skunk friend. In short, Rag­weed Junior is very much a teenag­er. Even Ereth, the can­tan­ker­ous por­cu­pine, with his salty swear­ing, can’t straight­en him out.

Then Pop­py gets an urgent request to return to her old home, Gray House, where her aging par­ents, Sweet Cice­ly and Lung­wort, are in dif­fi­cul­ties. Not only does she agree to go back, she decides to take Junior, in hopes trav­el­ing togeth­er will bring them together.

But when Junior’s skunk pal and Ereth join the par­ty, the trip does­n’t quite go as expected.

And when Pop­py recalls she did not get along with her par­ents, things become even more complicated.

Resources

Story Behind the Story

I recall read­ing a piece by John D. MacDonald—the mys­tery writer—giving advice to any­one who want­ed (as he did) to write a suc­cess­ful series. I believe he said one had to write a num­ber of them before giv­ing it a full com­mit­ment. He may have been cor­rect, but when it came to writ­ing my Pop­py series, it was nev­er intend­ed to be a series, and it took me four­teen years to write.

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buy the book 
The Poppy Books
if you liked this book, try: