*** Warning: This review contains SPOILERS!! ***
I continue to like Poppy, the character. She is thoughtful and level-headed, and has a nice calming presence.
The major theme in this book is family. I like that we see a bit of Poppy's insecurities as a parent. Perhaps some young readers, who may be inclined to be as disrespectful to their own parents as Junior is to his, will see that that sort of behavior is hurtful and unnecessary.
Some lessons from this book: "Treat your parents respectfully." "Don't take your family for granted."
It seemed to me, though, that the author simply recycled some of the family drama from Poppy and Rye. In that book, Rye's family home is threatened (by beavers), and the whole family looks for first-born Ragweed to come and save the day. In this book, Poppy's family home, Gray House, is threatened (by a bulldozer), and the whole family looks for first-born Poppy to come and save the day. In both cases, the potential contributions of the second-born children (Rye and Lilly, respectively), who are ready and willing to step up, are overlooked.
Still, this book does explore family dynamics a bit more than Poppy and Rye. Junior's relationship with his parents is strained. Even though Poppy yearns for a better relationship with Junior, her own relationship with her parents is strained as well. We see that while Poppy doesn't always agree with her parents, she still has a sense of filial piety - she can disagree with her parents while still being respectful. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that Junior learned this lesson. While he does manage to get along with Poppy's father Lungwort, he does not give up his troublesome behavior - belching, swearing ("freaking"), and causing trouble without feeling any remorse. While it's good that he and Poppy are eventually able to come to a better understanding of each other, I wish Junior could have exhibited a bit more growth and learned to behave more maturely. When it comes right down to it, for me, Junior was not a likable character.
I did like Mephitis the skunk, and his perspective - being alone without a family, and wanting to have one - certainly added to the family theme. Somehow, though, he seemed to always be on the sidelines of the story. He was a good supporting character, but I still wish his role had been bigger.
Certainly Mephitis, like Ereth, played a role in the resolution of the story, but I couldn't help but feel that the ending was just too contrived. I really didn't see the point of Junior, Mephitis, and Ereth being the ones ultimately responsible for bulldozing Gray House, especially since Junior didn't learn anything from the experience. What was gained by that outcome? Why not leave it up to the humans? If the author was trying to set up an ending in which the house was not completely destroyed, and the humans would not come back to clean up the mess, that ending could still have been achieved with the red mice smelling like skunk scaring the driver away after the house is knocked down, but not totaled.
Come to think of it, it wasn't just the ending - the whole story was too manufactured. The whole time I was reading the book, I kept asking, "Why don't they all just move to New House?!?!" This most obvious solution was mentioned a couple times, but pushed aside without a convincing reason.
One final tidbit: The mice's use of "wicked" as an adverb, e.g., "wicked scary", makes me think that Dimwood Forest must be not too far from Boston!
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