Poppy comes home by Gabrielle Wang

Ill. by Lucia Masciullo. Our Australian Girl (series). Penguin, 2011 ISBN 978 0 14 330535 4.
(Ages 9+) Australian history. In an ending which ties up all the strands from the three before, Poppy comes home, sees our hero finally reaching Beechworth, where she is working with a travelling salesman and his crew, selling entertainment and then medicines to the beguiled public. While performing she spies Blossom in the crowd, but is distracted when the bushranger, Harry Power is brought to justice. Talking to a man in the crowd, she finds he is the bookshop owner who sensing her love of books, takes her on as his assistant. She then introduces Blossom to the owner and she is adopted by his family. Searching for her dog, Fisher, lately stolen and sold by the professor from the travelling show, she comes across some people who tell her that Gus is buried in the local cemetery. But all is not lost, it is not Gus but another boy, and the family is reunited.
An easy to read story, it gallops along with plenty of adventure, coincidences and happenings for middles primary readers to enjoy. Poppy is engaging, and readers will want to know that her family is complete, while reading of this girl in the Our Australian Girl series.
Again lots of information is given in the background of the story adding to the readers' knowledge of Australia in the gold rush era, and information is given at the end of the book, before two pages showing the next two girls in the series, Nellie, 1849 and Alice, 1918.
Fran Knight