By: Kate DiCamillo
Libby ebook 68 chapters plus an epilogue
Published: 2013
Genre: Children's fantasy / realistic fiction
I didn't like this book as much as I expected to, but it was another wonderful DiCamillo title. I think I would have enjoyed a print copy more, but the drawings and cartoons were nice. I'm trying to decide if I want to see a movie version . . . I had heard someone rave about it but I like what my imagination came up with just fine. (Okay, I just watched the trailer. Looks cute.) I put both fantasy (squirrel can fly and type) and realistic fiction (kids dealing with relationship issues with parents) because it has both. Flora and her neighbor's great-nephew William Spiver become friends with irritation after a squirrel is sucked into a powerful vacuum cleaner and survives.
Chapter 2: Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought: food.
This made me smile. Ulysses the squirrel was constantly thinking about food. He didn't always get to eat when he wanted, though. There was a lot of humor around this theme.
DiCamillo uses fantastic vocabulary (throughout the entire book) like cogitation, malfeasance, heinous, multiplicity, melodious, sepulchral, . . . I love her words!
Chapter 10: Flora was a cynic and didn't care whether her mother loved her or not.
It made me sad that Flora and her mother had such a strained relationship. For Flora to even think that her mother preferred the lamp Maryann to her own daughter is not funny.
Chapter 11: "Do not hope; instead, observe."
Flora kept referencing things she had read in Terrible Things Can Happen to You! This one came up often as a sort of life philosophy.
Chapter 12: "Holy unanticipated occurrences!"
This phrase was from The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! which was Flora's favorite superhero comic that she and her dad shared.
There's a whole passage in chapter 15 about electric chairs that I highlighted but am too lazy to type here. DiCamillo is a wonderful, creative author. I love how she writes to her audience with respect and humor.
Chapter 21: Every superhero had an arch-nemesis.
That Flora suspects William Spiver of being Ulysses' arch-nemesis stems more from her initial dislike of him than anything else. Her neighbor, Tootie Tickham, is an absolute delight. She's the nutty lady who "gets" weird kids like Flora.
Chapter 24: In any case, he wasn't thinking about dying. He was thinking about poetry. That is what Tootie said he had written. Poetry. He liked the word - its smallness, its density, the way it rose up at the end as if it had wings.
Ulysses loves words. He uses Flora's mom's typewriter to express himself. He's a very sensitive squirrel.
Chapter 25: Considering the human beings she was surrounded by, believing in a squirrel seemed like an increasingly reasonable plan of action.
Flora's dad is a bit of an odd duck, but a very nice man. He would introduce himself in any random situation.
Chapter 25: Tootie put a hand on her chest. "This is Rilke," she said. "'You, sent out beyond your recall, / go to the limits of your longing. / Embody me. / Flare up like flame / and make big shadows I can move in.'"
Ulysses stared up at Tootie, his eyes bright.
I love that the squirrel and the neighbor lady both loved poetry and bonded over it. So sweet!
Chapter 27: Overflowing trash cans, just-cut grass, sun-warmed patches of pavement, the loamy richness of dirt, earthworms (loamy-smelling, too; often difficult to distinguish from the smell of dirt), dog, more dog, dog again (Oh, dogs! Small dogs, large dogs, foolish dogs; the torturing of dogs was the one reliable pleasure of a squirrel's existence), the tang of fertilizer, a faint whiff of birdseed, something baking, the hidden hint of nuttiness (pecan, acorn), the small, apologetic, don't-mind-me odor of mouse, and the ruthless stench of cat. (Cats were terrible; cats were never to be trusted. Never.)
This stream-of-consciousness of Ulysses (sniffing with his head out the car window) as he and Flora travel to the donut shop with her father amused me, especially as it relates squirrels to dogs and cats.
Chapter 36: What was the apostrophe doing there? Did the doctor own the Meescham? And what was it with exclamation marks? Did people not know what they were for?
It felt as though DiCamillo wrote this for me. I notice signs and misused punctuation marks. I loved Dr. Meescham, though.
Chapter 36: Someone inside the apartment was screaming. No, someone was singing. It was opera. Opera music.
Again, this resonated for me. My mom sometimes listened to opera on the radio. I would always ask her why she wanted to listen to people screaming.
Chapter 38: Good grief, thought Flora. What did he paint when he was old and depressed?
Oh my! Dr. Meescham has just told Flora that the dark painting of a squid about to attack a boat was a reminder of her late husband when he was "young and joyful." Flora's mental response is funny.
Chapter 39: "Pascal," said Dr. Meescham, "had it that since it could not be proven whether God existed, one might as well believe that he did, because there was everything to gain by believing and nothing to lose. This is how it is for me. What do I lose if I choose to believe? Nothing!"
I had heard of "Pascal's Wager" before, but I had forgotten. I love when I learn / relearn things like this!
Chapter 53: It was comforting to have William Spiver act just as annoying in a dream as he would in real life.
I'm not sure why this amused me, but I've always found dreams to be fascinating.
Chapter 54: Cat revenge was a terrible thing. Cats never forgot an insult. Never. And to be thrown down a hallway (backward) by a squirrel was a terrible insult.
Cats can act as though they are evil geniuses, plotting revenge on anyone who has wronged them.
Chapter 58: Was Flora strange?
He supposed so.
But what was wrong with that?
She was strange in a good way. She was strange in a lovable way. Her heart was so big. It was capacious. Just like George Buckman's heart.
I love that Ulysses sees Flora as she is and loves her that way. I find it distressing that her own mother wants her to be more "normal."
Chapter 66: "The truth," said William Spiver, "is a slippery thing. I doubt that you will ever get to The Truth. You may get to a version of the truth. But The Truth? I doubt it very seriously."
I could open up a discussion on truth here, but I shall not. I love that DiCamillo is writing for children, but her writing definitely has room for stretching thinking.
Chapter 67: "Normalcy is an illusion, of course," said William Spiver. "There is no normal."
And so William Spiver points out a truth and the story ends with Ulysses' poem Words for Flora. I'm a bit surprised I've blogged so much about a children's book!
