Flour Babies

Flour Babies is a book written in 1992 by Anne Fine, aimed at older children, which won the Carnegie Medal.^[1]

Synopsis

The story centres around Simon Martin, a pupil in class 4C at an unnamed school. 4C is the class reserved for the school's worst students. As it so happens, a new student has arrived at the school, and, by sheer coincidence, his name is Martin Simon. The two boys are the complete antithesis of each other – Martin Simon passed all his science exams with flying colours, reads voraciously and even speaks and reads French fluently. The class teacher, Mr. Cartwright, sends the boy to Dr. Feltham's class, and Simon, who had been sent there by accident, soon arrives. The class are choosing their options for their contribution to the school Science Fair. They wish they could work on one of the most exciting experiments – The Exploding Custard Tins, Soap Factory, or Maggot Farm, for example – but these have been reserved for those who passed their science exams. As a result, 4C have ended up having to choose between a series of unexciting topics- consumer studies, textiles, child development, nutrition, and domestic economy. Simon Martin is given the task of pulling a voting slip out of a tub- Martin Simon's slip comes out; the topic he has chosen is "child development".

The experiment which Dr. Feltham (an eccentric science teacher who organises the fair) has chosen for child development is 'Flour Babies'. Each boy is given a six-pound bag of flour, in rags to form the look of a baby, and he must care for it at all times, as if it were a real baby. They must also write a diary explaining how they cope with this responsibility. Needless to say, the boys do not want to do this experiment, but Simon misunderstands a conversation he overhears between Dr. Feltham and Mr. Cartwright, and thinks that they will get to kick the flour babies to bits at the end. Simon becomes fond of his flour baby, while the others complain. Simon reflects on his own childhood: his Dad left home when Simon was just six weeks old, and never came back. His Mum frequently gets irritable, and, lumbered with a flour baby 24/7, Simon begins to understand why.

The device of a first name - last name pair of identities was explored in the children's novel The Mark of Conte by Sonia Levitin twenty years earlier.

References