From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10-When Poppy's divorced mother spends the summer in Greece with her boyfriend, the adopted teen decides to visit her dad and his new family in Winnipeg and search for her birth mother. The visit has its ups and downs. Her stepmother's pregnancy obliges Poppy to do much of the housework and help take care of her two-year-old half-brother. The rather bohemian lifestyle that her father and Calypso lead makes her uncomfortable, as do the town's rampant cankerworms that drop from the trees into her hair. Then she meets Becca, an elusive woman who, like Poppy, has red hair and who once gave away a baby girl for adoption. When Poppy discovers that Becca is not her mother, they part with Becca's words, "Perhaps we're always looking, hoping to find the thing we want-we think we need-in someone else." The teen's quest for her mother becomes a journey into self-awareness and she, with the help of her new friend Mac, discovers what the word "family" really means. Sensitively written, the story explores a variety of relational issues in a realistic way. Poppy is rather self-centered, prickly, and fiercely independent, though also insecure, good-hearted, and loving. An appealing book with a host of unusual characters that will worm their way into readers' hearts.
Janet Hilbun, formerly at Sam Houston Middle School, Garland, TX Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Inside Flap
Poppy is on an odyssey. Her adoptive mother has taken off to find herself, so Poppy decides to live with her adoptive father, his new wife, Calypso, and their toddler, Sandeep, in a ramshackle rasp-berry-colored house. At first Poppy is distressed by the disordered household, which is unlike anything she has ever known, but soon it becomes a jumping-off point for her search for her birth mother.
Poppy discovers a great many things in the course of her search. She finds a kindred spirit in a strange, sickly woman named Becca, and an unexpected connection with the hippy, Calypso. But most of all, she finds a part of herself she didn?t even know was missing.
