Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures
A New York Times bestseller!
Available in a paperback edition! The beloved 2014 Newbery Medal winner by former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo.
It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting format — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by artist K. G. Campbell.
Available in a paperback edition! The beloved 2014 Newbery Medal winner by former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo.
It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry — and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting format — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by artist K. G. Campbell.
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Community Reviews
This is a story about families, birthed and selected; and the need in all of us to be loved. Flora's parents are gratingly divorced, her mother is distant, her life is dull. And then her neighbor gets a supercharged vacuum cleaner that, when it sucks up a squirrel in the backyard, attributes superhero powers to the squirrel. The squirrel loses some hair, but gains an ability to understand human language, write poetry and fly. Fair trade, I'd say. And here begins the adventures. The book, told in part through traditional fiction, in part as a graphic novel has even more quirky characters than I've described already, is completely unbelievable in its actual story line, but tells an important tale of love and acceptance.
I'm obviously not the intended audience but I read a fair number of children's books and I didn't find it as compelling as others. The art work is really fun though. It's written like a chapter book with comic book style interruptions so I'd recommend it for a child trying to transition from graphic novels to chapter books without as many drawings.
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