My only true complete series

I find it hard to believe but it is just about twen­ty years ago, that Pop­py was pub­lished. That book and the five oth­er Pop­py titles con­sti­tute my only true com­plete series. It was not meant to be a series, and indeed, I did not write them in sequence. Pop­py came first, fol­lowed (belat­ed­ly) by Pop­py and Rye. Then I real­ized I need­ed to relate Ragweed’s sto­ry, so I wrote his tale, and it func­tions as the first of the series. Ereth’s Birth­day, Poppy’s Return, and final­ly Pop­py and Ereth fol­lowed in prop­er order.  

The process of writ­ing them was very much more like vis­it­ing a fam­i­ly of whom I was fond, than sit­ting down and invent­ing a sto­ry. Per­haps that hap­pened because there are many ele­ments in the sto­ries that tru­ly did come from my fam­i­ly.

Then in addi­tion, Bri­an Floca’s illustrations—while in many ways were nec­es­sar­i­ly con­sis­tent– seemed to reveal more and more of the char­ac­ters, and that great­ly enhanced the series.

Why six books, and no more?  I recalled read­ing The Lit­tle House series to my old­er boys, and knew how Wilder’s six books filled out a good year of fam­i­ly read­ing. That was good enough for me. There­fore six books.

Some years ago, Harper­Collins (who pub­lish­es the books) asked me to speak about them. You can see that inter­view.

The last line of that inter­view sums up what I felt about con­clud­ing the series.