Leaving Poppy is written by Kate Cann. It is a fiction with a slightly spooky side to it!
    The main character is Amber. She is a timid but caring girl who has been put second best by her mother to keep her ‘difficult’ and overly sensitive half-sister, Poppy, happy. She lives hidden behind the shaddow of Poppy who has had difficulty in settling into schools and colleges and making new friends.
    When Amber has had enough, she leaves for Cornwall, telling her family that she will be back in a few weeks, but really, she’s left for good. She builds herself a new life, gets a job in a restaurant, moves into a student house, makes new friends and she begins to gain strength and confidence. Except there is something Amber feels isn’t quite right and she finds it difficult to put it behind her. It is the creepy, thin shaddow on the attic staircase, the spooky presence she can sense and the strange old lady down the road.
    It is written in straight forward, simple language and uses a lot of direct speech.
    Kate Cann has written lots of teenage series. She won the ‘Angus Book Award’ in 2008 for Leaving Poppy, which is an award in which the teenagers reading the book do the voting.
    I thought the book was fantastic as it greally gripped you. Once I knew something about the mystery of why the house was so spooky, I just needed to know more! I would recommend it for 13+ year olds as it is quite intense.
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