“Poppy in the Wild,” a true story by local New York Times best-selling author Teresa J. Rhyne about the search for a rescue beagle lost in the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, is the featured book for Riverside Reads 2023, the city of Riverside announced.
The book is a touching true account of the powerful bond between humans and animals, as well as Rhyne’s personal joy found in rescuing dogs.
Free copies of the book are available at all Riverside Public Library branches.
“The library has scheduled three author events, a pet journaling workshop, pet portrait painting opportunities, and other paw-some activities,” according to an announcement from the city of Riverside.
Author events featuring Teresa Rhyne and her beagle friends will be held:
— Saturday, February 4, 10 a.m. to noon, Ameal Moore Nature Center, 400 Central Ave.
— Wednesday, March 1, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Foster Army Animal Rescue, 3711 Central Ave.
— Tuesday, March 7, 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center, 6165 Industrial Ave.
This year’s Riverside Reads spotlights the importance of adopting pets and animal fostering, including a focus on animals that were adopted during the COVID-19 quarantine and were later abandoned or returned to overcrowded shelters after the quarantine was lifted.
“Rhyne shares her experience with rescue specialists, volunteers, psychics, a Native American who works with owls, helpful neighbors, decidedly unhelpful strangers, a howling woman, and the police,” according to the city’s announcement. “This network assisted in finding her lost rescue beagle named Poppy, who escaped from a potential foster family in the vast wilderness of the 1,500-acre Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area.”
Rhyne is also wrote the no. 1 New York Times bestseller “The Dog Lived (and So Will I),” a surprisingly humorous memoir about her dog and Rhyne both surviving cancer. That book’s sequel, “The Dogs Were Rescued (and So Was I)” won the Pat Santi Memorial award from the Dog Writers Association of America.
Riverside Reads is the annual presentation resulting from funding provided by the California State Library Book to Action program.
More information is available at Riverside Public Library locations or by visiting riversideca.gov/library/riversidereads.asp.
