Story Behind the Story #54: Ereth’s Birthday

If I had to pick my own favorite from the six Pop­py books, I sup­pose it must be Ereth’s Birth­day. The Pop­py sto­ries, which are, after all, about ani­mals, have more auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal con­tent than most of my oth­er books. (Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor, is the most auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal.) In Ereth’s Birth­day, how­ev­er, the por­cu­pine Ereth, takes on the role of step-father—albeit reluctantly.

At the behest of trans­paren­cy, I too am a step-father. My expe­ri­ence has been that being a step-father was much hard­er than being a bio­log­i­cal par­ent. There is noth­ing giv­en. Every­thing is earned, or lost. The love you gain, is the love you earn. Indeed, there are unique rewards to being a suc­cess­ful step par­ent. A lot good. Some not so good.

Young fox are called kits. But the col­lec­tive noun for fox is “leash,” which is to say, one refers to a “leash of fox.” I find this odd because if you have ever seen kits, they are absolute­ly not on a leash. They are play­ful, ram­bunc­tious, and extreme­ly charm­ing. Those rare times I have seen kits in the wild, they have always remind­ed me of human kids at joy­ful play-hence the book.

In this sto­ry, these are the kinds that cur­mud­geon­ly Ereth under­takes to parent.

The kits in the book are, each in their way, based on my step-kids, though from this van­tage point I can’t say who is whom. It has been fur­ther sug­gest­ed that Ereth is a self-por­trait. Maybe.

The fun in the book is that the kits are all charm­ing ener­gy and emo­tion, even as Ereth tries to cor­ral them into life-sav­ing mea­sures. Not easy for him, but, I think, very fun­ny for the reader.

Some books are hard to write. Oth­ers, if not exact­ly easy, are stress free. A few books are a joy to write. Ereth’s Birth­day was one of those.

But—

As you might guess, when I pub­lish my books I always give copies to all my kids—all five of them. That said, the one book I nev­er did dis­trib­ute was Ereth’s Birth­day. After all, it’s my vision—the step-father—of being a par­ent. I was nev­er quite sure how my kids would receive it.

That’s the Ereth in me.