Flora & Ulysses

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures is a children's novel by American author Kate DiCamillo and illustrated by K. G. Campbell, published in 2013 by Candlewick Press. It tells the story of Flora Belle Buckman and a superhero squirrel named Ulysses.

The illustrations include full-page and small pencil drawings, together with comic-book panels describing the squirrel's adventures.

Summary

Self-proclaimed cynic, Flora, spends her time reading comic books and struggling to understand her parents’ recent divorce. She is jolted into action when the neighbor runs over a squirrel named Ulysses with a vacuum cleaner. The squirrel’s brush with death causes him to develop superpowers. Flora explains to Ulysses that he must use his newfound powers to right wrongs, fight injustice, or something. The neighbor further introduces Ulysses to poetry and his mind is awoken to profound nature of words.

Flora’s mother fears talking to a squirrel is a sign that something is wrong with her daughter and conspires to kill Ulysses for her daughter’s own good. Meanwhile, Flora and Ulysses head out for a day with Flora’s father and find themselves on an adventure involving giant doughnuts, a cat attack, a boy struck blind by tragedy and a doctor of philosophy who tells stories about uncertainty and hope.

When Flora confronts her mother about her desire to kill Ulysses a shouting match erupts in which Flora comes to believe her mother doesn’t love her. Ulysses understands otherwise and writes a poem to explain Flora and her mother’s real emotions but Flora’s mother kidnaps him before the poem can be read. Flora puts together a crack team to rescue Ulysses, who has already escaped leaving Flora’s mother to read his poem. The cast reunites in the father’s apartment building where Flora’s cynical exterior is cracked for good as she realizes her parents truly love her.

Characters

Flora Belle Buckman: A natural-born cynic and a reader of comic books. Flora has memorized the advice in the series TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU and lives by the mantra, “Do not hope; instead, observe.”

Ulysses: A squirrel who develops super-powers after a brush with death (He gets run over by a vacuum cleaner). He can fly, lift heavy objects, understand human speech and type poetry. He is also insatiably hungry.

George Buckman: Flora’s father, a small and sad man who hasn’t smiled since his divorce.

Phyllis Buckman: Flora’s mother is a romance novelist whose most prized possession is a lamp.

Tootie Tickham: Flora’s neighbor who loves poetry and receives a very powerful vacuum cleaner from her husband.

William Spiver: Mrs. Tickham’s nephew who has been banished from his own family after rolling his step-father’s truck into a lake. He claims to have been struck blind by this calamity.

Dr. Meescham: George’s neighbor and a doctor of philosophy. She tells stories about her childhood in a town where people were occasionally eaten by trolls.

Mr. Klaus: A terrifying cat belonging to the manager of George’s apartment building who is also named Mr. Klaus.

Awards

Flora & Ulysses won the Newbery Medal for 2014.^[1]

Reception

The Horn Book review described the book as "heartwarming" with plenty of humor and a "quirky supporting cast", and notes that the illustrations "accentuate the mood".^[2]

References