ERETH’S BIRTHDAY

The gruff but good-hearted porcupine of Avi’s Poppy tales gets an adventure of his own, along with plenty of opportunities to fulminate.

Spouting lines like “squirrel-splat soup” and “phooey and fried salamander spit with a side order of rat ribbon,” Ereth stomps away from his musty log convinced that neighbor Poppy and her large family have forgotten his birthday. Back he comes a month later, having survived heavy snows, hunters’ traps, a predatory fisher’s attack, and a promise made to a dying fox to care for her three kits. Of course, he finds a delicious gift and a much-relieved troop of deer mice waiting. Avi makes Ereth’s sometimes-hilarious efforts to mother the hyperactive young foxes both the story’s centerpiece and a sharp commentary on absent fathers. The kits’ errant but much-admired dad, appropriately named “Bounder,” checks in after a full week to boot Ereth out; too self-centered to care about anyone else, he abandons the kits again the next day. Though the tale is not free of conveniently overheard conversations and other contrivances, it generally moves along at a good clip, builds to a dramatic climax, comes to a joyful close, and features a lively mix of characters and moods.

Like Eeyore (with a temper), Ereth will be a source of amusement for his dark moods and gloomy outlook.