Logo
help print
 
 
Image of item
Flora & Ulysses : the illuminated adventures
by DiCamillo, Kate.
 Book 
Book
J DIC
Candlewick Press,, 2013.
231 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
 
Get it
Go Back
 
You can find this item at these locations:
Location Call Number Shelving Location Status
Etna Library J DIC Etna childrens Available
Howe Library J DIC Children's chapter books Checked out
Howe Library J PB D Children's paperbacks Available
About this item:

Rescuing a squirrel after an accident involving a vacuum cleaner, comic-reading cynic Flora Belle Buckman is astonished when the squirrel, Ulysses, demonstrates astonishing powers of strength and flight after being revived.

Syndetic Solutions - Publishers Weekly Review for ISBN Number 9780763660406
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
by DiCamillo, Kate; Campbell, K. G. (Illustrator)
Rate this title:
vote data
Click an element below to view details:

Publishers Weekly Review

Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures

Publishers Weekly


(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Newbery Medalist DiCamillo and illustrator Campbell meld prose with comics sequences in a broad comedy tinged with sadness. Bitter about her parents' divorce, Flora Buckman has withdrawn into her favorite comic book, The Amazing Incandesto! and memorized the advisories in its ongoing bonus feature, Terrible Things Can Happen to You! She puts those life-saving tips into action when a squirrel is swallowed whole by a neighbor's new vacuum cleaner, the Ulysses Super-Suction Multi-Terrain 2000X. Flora resuscitates the squirrel, christens him after the vacuum, and witnesses a superhero-like transformation: Ulysses is now uber-strong, can fly, and composes poetry. Despite supremely quirky characters and dialogue worthy of an SAT prep class, there's real emotion at the heart of this story involving two kids who have been failed by the most important people in their lives: their parents. It's into this profound vacuum that Ulysses really flies, demonstrating an unconditional love for his rescuer, trumped only perhaps by his love for food and a desire "to make the letters on the keyboard speak the truth of his heart." Ages 10-up. Author's agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. Illustrator's agent: Lori Nowicki, Painted Words. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Syndetic Solutions - The Horn Book Review for ISBN Number 9780763660406
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
by DiCamillo, Kate; Campbell, K. G. (Illustrator)
Rate this title:
vote data
Click an element below to view details:

The Horn Book Review

Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures

The Horn Book


(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Ten-year-old Flora Belle Buckman's life changes when she resuscitates a squirrel after his near-death experience with her neighbor's Ulysses 2000X vacuum. Flora discovers that the incident has caused the squirrel, whom she also names Ulysses, to acquire superpowers. Despite being a "natural-born cynic," Flora's lively imagination and love of comics such as The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! help her believe that Ulysses is bound for superhero greatness. There's only one problem: Ulysses's archnemesis, Flora's self-absorbed, romance novel-writing, squirrel-hating mother. Beneath the basic superhero-squirrel-friend plot, DiCamillo imbues this novel with emotion by focusing on larger life issues such as loss and abandonment, acceptance of difference, loneliness, love, overcoming fears, and the complexity of relationships. She also adds plenty of warmth and humor throughout: Flora enjoys using catch phrases and big words ("holy bagumba!"; malfeasance; capacious); Ulysses loves to eat. . .just about anything; and there is a quirky supporting cast, including Flora's absent-minded father, her eleven-year-old neighbor William Spiver, and his great-aunt, Tootie Tickham. Campbell's full-page and spot pencil illustrations accentuate the mood, while interspersed comic-book pages "illuminate" Ulysses's superhero adventures and serve as a nice visual complement to Flora's love of comics. This little girl and squirrel and their heartwarming tale could melt even the most hardened archnemesis's heart. cynthia k. ritter (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Syndetic Solutions - New York Times Review for ISBN Number 9780763660406
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
by DiCamillo, Kate; Campbell, K. G. (Illustrator)
Rate this title:
vote data
Click an element below to view details:

New York Times Review

Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures

New York Times


September 15, 2013

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company

when i meet a new character in a children's book, I often ask myself: Is this a child I would want to drive to a birthday party? The answer is most often a resounding no. Then along came Flora Belle Buckman, the 10-year-old star of Kate DiCamillo's madcap chapter book, "Flora and Ulysses." Unlike some of her freshas-paint fictional counterparts, Flora has gravitas. She is a self-proclaimed "natural-born cynic" with a misanthropic streak reminiscent of Harriet the Spy. She's not a grouch exactly, but she is world-weary, perhaps as a result of her parents' recent divorce. Like many a cynic, Flora is skeptical of love; but she has a passion for words, particularly those that appear inside thought bubbles. Conveniently, her mother, Phyllis, a romance novelist, is so distracted that Flora has plenty of time to immerse herself in what Phyllis refers to as "the idiotic high jinks of comics." Flora's favorites are "The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto!" and its companion, "Terrible Things Can Happen to You!" She lives by advice gleaned from their pages. Her mantra: "Do not hope; instead, observe." One day, while she's lost in her comic book universe - cheerfully illuminated by K.G. Campbell - Flora witnesses an amazing thing. Her neighbor, Tootie Tickham, is pulled into the yard by the power of her birthday present, a Ulysses SuperSuction, Multi-Terrain 2000X vacuum cleaner. In an uproarious mash-up, the appliance-gone-wrong ingests a squirrel, which it quickly regurgitates, minus some fur but empowered with the gift of thought and super-squirrel strength. "Holy bagumba," Flora says. Truer words have never been spoken. "Flora and Ulysses" alternates between Flora's perspective and the squirrel's, which is infused with Zen philosophy à la rodent. One snapshot: "His brain felt larger, roomier. It was as if several doors in the dark room of his self (doors he hadn't even known existed) had suddenly been flung wide. Everything was shot through with meaning, purpose, light." Flora names the squirrel Ulysses and smuggles him into her house, attracting nary a glance from her inattentive mother. Flora, caught in the purgatory of tweenhood, missing her father and fed up with her mother's nagging, finds Ulysses to be the perfect companion. He's adorable and unthreatening, and other than tapping out cryptic messages and poems on Phyllis's electric typewriter, he keeps his deep thoughts to himself. The two embark on a series of adventures together - none of them earthshatteringly exciting, but each distinguished by an emotional depth that is appropriately Joycean (and, fear not, appropriate for kids). Flora and her squirrel mostly stick close to home, where they team up with William Spiver, Tootie Tickham's blind nephew, to protect Ulysses from the now cognizant adults who want to return him to the wild. Flora is certain that Ulysses is a superhero; William is harder to convince. The tension mounts when Flora's father, George, comes to pick her up for a visit. Phyllis dispatches the pair with explicit instructions for George to put Ulysses in a sack and hit him over the head with a shovel. But first they stop at Giant Do-Nut, where the squirrel takes a flying leap out of his shoe box and into a waitress's hair. Despite the stress of not knowing whether Ulysses will outwit his arch-nemesis, Phyllis, it is fascinating to have a squirrel's eye view on the world, especially when the squirrel is a poet at heart. The smells! The doughnut selection! The wonderful imagery of sunny side up eggs ! Occasionally, reading "Flora and Ulysses" gives you that whiplash feeling of watching TV with someone who changes the channel every two seconds. The chapters are short and choppy and the antics so off-the-wall, parents looking for a peaceful bedtime story to read aloud may be surprised by how riled up young listeners get. But isn't that the fun of DiCamillo's books? In "Flora and Ulysses," longtime fans will find a happy marriage of Mercy Watson's warmth and wackiness and Edward Tulane's gentle life lessons. In Flora, they will find a girl worth knowing, and one they will remember. She is welcome in my minivan anytime. ? ELISABETH EGAN is the books editor at Glamour.

Syndetic Solutions - BookList Review for ISBN Number 9780763660406
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures
by DiCamillo, Kate; Campbell, K. G. (Illustrator)
Rate this title:
vote data
Click an element below to view details:

BookList Review

Flora and Ulysses : The Illuminated Adventures

Booklist


From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

*Starred Review* The story begins with a vacuum cleaner. And a squirrel. Or, to be more precise, a squirrel who gets sucked into a Ulysses Super Suction wielded by Flora's neighbor, Mrs. Tickham. The rather hairless squirrel that is spit out is not the same one that went in. That squirrel had only one thought: I'm hungry. After Flora performs CPR, the rescued squirrel, newly named Ulysses, is still hungry, but now he has many thoughts in his head. Foremost is his consideration of Flora's suggestion that perhaps he is a superhero like The Amazing Incandesto, whose comic-book adventures Flora read with her father. (Drawing on comic-strip elements, Campbell's illustrations here work wonderfully well.) Since Flora's father and mother have split up, Flora has become a confirmed and defiant cynic. Yet it is hard to remain a cynic while one's heart is opening to a squirrel who can type ( Squirtl. I am . . . born anew ), who can fly, and who adores Flora. Newbery winner DiCamillo is a master storyteller, and not just because she creates characters who dance off the pages and plots, whether epic or small, that never fail to engage and delight readers. Her biggest strength is exposing the truths that open and heal the human heart. She believes in possibilities and forgiveness and teaches her audience that the salt of life can be cut with the right measure of love. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: DiCamillo has a devoted following, plus this book has an extensive marketing campaign. That equals demand.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist

 
New Search