Appleblossom is a young opossum, one of thirteen siblings. She’s learning how to live like a possum from her mother, lessons like what food to scavenge for, how to find safe places to sleep during the day, and most of all, how to work on her theatrics. For the possums are all actors, and proud of it- this part of the story stretched belief quite a bit, as the possums are going around quoting Shakespeare and staging scenes for their family members, but I just went along with it. Of course the biggest and most important act is to convincingly play dead when faced with serious threat, and I was a bit annoyed thinking this would be portrayed as something the possums had to consciously work at. But when Appleblossom faced real danger, she did fall down unwillingly in a comatose state, just like happens in real life.
Getting ahead of myself. So the little possums are practicing their acting skills and learning survival lessons, when suddenly one day their mother leaves them. It felt very abrupt. I’m sure it does to actual young possums having to make it on their own, too. For a while the siblings stick together, then gradually start to disperse until eventually there’s just Appleblossom and two of her brothers. She gets up on the roof of a house one day, curious about observing humans and their frightful dog (which she’s been warned are the most dangerous things out there, along with cars), when she accidentally falls down the chimney and finds herself trapped inside the house. She’s terrified, the family dog goes berserk trying to locate and attack her, the little girl discovers her and wants to make her a pet, and then the adults are about to call an exterminator. It’s almost more than the little possum can handle. But her brothers out there are trying to find a way to rescue her- going on a mission with an older possum to get help- and the little girl means well, and the dog is rather blundering. I found it pretty amusing the segments from the little girl’s perspective, where the reader finds out how much she wanted a dog to be her pal, and then was so disappointed when having a dog didn’t turn out like she’d expected. There’s also a bit from the dog’s viewpoint as well. In the end the story gets a little crazy with the possums’ escapades, and a little weird with the rooftop dancing scene, but I found plenty to laugh and smile at, it was a fun read.
By the same author as Counting by 7’s, but really the book it reminded me more of was the talking raccoon one. It was the mixture of real animal facts combined with slightly anthropomorphic characteristics. In this case, the theatrics of the possums, their ability to comprehend certain things about humans, and the postures/body shapes in the illustrations (more humanlike than possum-like in many ways. Plus the tails were abnormally long and thin). All that said, I did learn some things about possums, and looked up a bit to learn more. For example, did you know that possums can eat carrion and spoiled food no problem because their body temperature is lower than other mammals, so viruses can’t survive inside them. Aside from all that, this was a cute story with a lot of appeal and humor.
Borrowed from the public library.
