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My only true complete series

PoppyI 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.

4 thoughts on “My only true complete series”

  1. I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing aloud The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia to my kids, but now I know what we’ll be read­ing next. My old­est has read all your Pop­py books, but I haven’t got­ten to them yet. It will be a great way to bump them up in my own to-be-read pile.

    Reply
  2. Your con­clu­sion is espe­cial­ly fit­ting today as I am think­ing about Robin Williams’ death. Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
  3. This series is one I share with my third graders each year. They beg to hear more each day as I read aloud. 

    They posed an inter­est­ing ques­tion this year. When will the movies come out?

    Reply
  4. Your won­der­ful Pop­py was the first Avi book my daugh­ter read when she was 8 years old. With that book she become an avid Avi fan! She is now 14 years old, still loves your work and con­tin­ues to seek out your books from any book store we come across.
    Thank you again for all of the many hours of read­ing enjoy­ment you have giv­en her. One of her child­hood high­light moments is when she got to meet her favorite author “you” in New York a cou­ple years ago.

    Reply

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