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.

Poppy's Return is a hilarious adventure tale about family: the gleeful joys, the farcical sorrows, the high emotions, and the low comedy of living with and without relations. It's also about bears, bulldozers, and the boisterous antics of young mice doing the stinky red. And sugared slug soup, there's always Ereth to stir the stew of Poppy's rich and rewarding life.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

Poppy's Return is a hilarious adventure tale about family: the gleeful joys, the farcical sorrows, the high emotions, and the low comedy of living with and without relations. It's also about bears, bulldozers, and the boisterous antics of young mice doing the stinky red. And sugared slug soup, there's always Ereth to stir the stew of Poppy's rich and rewarding life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr

Avi's latest addition to his animal adventure series is a thinly-disguised fable about human relationships. Poppy, the heroine of earlier stories, is a mouse beyond prejudice. Her best friend, after all, is a rather smelly, profane porcupine. But when her posturing adolescent son, Ragweed, Junior, makes best friends with an even smellier skunk, Poppy finds her limits strained. Enter Lilly—Poppy's straight-laced sister—with a summons home. What to do but drag a protesting Junior and his skunk buddy along on the journey out of Dimwood Forest? The challenges of the journey and the homecoming stretch Poppy. They also make for a neat truce between mother and son. Of course, bulldozers, ornery Papa Lungwort presiding from his boot throne, and "doing the stinky red" play their parts as well. Kids will probably gloss over all the touchy-feely stuff and go for the action. 2005, HarperCollins, and Ages 8 to 12.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6-Poppy is back in Avi's fifth book (HarperCollins, 2005) in the popular The Poppy Series. Now middle-aged, Poppy and Rye are dealing with a rebellions teenaged son. Summoned home to Gray House, Poppy decides the journey might be a bonding experience, so she invites Junior along. His skunk friend, Mephitis, comes with them and, though uninvited, Ereth the porcupine tags along as well. The visit is enlightening. Junior is surprised to hear of his mother's adventurous past, and Poppy's current independence is challenged by the needs of her extended family. The family problems Poppy is asked to solve are too large for one deer mouse. Still, an accident resolves everything, perhaps a little too easily, and all ends well. Narrator John McDonough brings the characters to life, showing obvious enjoyment in the dialogue, especially Ereth's expressions. He makes this an auditory treat by letting the author's words, rather than excessive theatrics, carry the story. Although the plot is rather adult, younger listeners will be caught up in Junior's delightful rebelliousness and Ereth's colorful language, and fans of the previous books will probably find this an acceptable addition to the series.-Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary School, Federal Way, WA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Avi's intrepid deer mouse sets out for a visit home in this fifth Dimwood Forest adventure, taking along her mutinously adolescent son Ragweed Junior in hopes of promoting some bonding. The ominous news that a bulldozer (owned by the "Derrida Deconstruction Company,") has been parked next to Gray House, the ramshackle farmhouse where Poppy's pompous father and his multitudinous descendants still live, prompts the trip. Thanks to her previous exploits, Poppy arrives to a hero's welcome, but barely has time to do more than organize a frantic evacuation before, in a slapstick climax, Junior, his (literally) unsavory buddy Mephitis the skunk and trash-mouthed Ereth the porcupine manage to start up the 'dozer and convert the house into a pile of kindling-which is to say, a mouse condo. The plot, though, takes second fiddle to the author's proposition that parents too can be "Sick," (i.e., cool) and teens, despite unappealing personal habits, not quite as hopeless as they might seem. Well, it's a worthy thought, and, well supplied with Floca's ground-level vignettes, agreeably presented. (Fiction. 10-12)