Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Product Description Available in a paperback edition! The beloved 2014 Newbery Medal winner by former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo. Holy unanticipated occurrences! From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters — a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black and white by K. G. Campbell. Review 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. —The New York Times Book Review Newbery-winner DiCamillo is a master storyteller 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. —Booklist (starred review) Original, touching and oh-so-funny tale starring an endearingly implausible superhero and a not-so-cynical girl. —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 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. —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Rife with marvelously rich vocabulary reminiscent of the early superhero era (e.g., “Holy unanticipated occurrences!”) and amusing glimpses at the world from the point of view of Ulysses the supersquirrel, this book will appeal to a broad audience of sophisticated readers. There are plenty of action sequences, but the novel primarily dwells in the realm of sensitive, hopeful, and quietly philosophical literature. —School Library Journal (starred review) About the Author Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER ONE A Natural-Born Cynic Flora Belle Buckman was in her room at her desk. She was very busy. She was doing two things at once. She was ignoring her mother, and she was also reading a comic book entitled The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! “Flora,” her mother shouted, “what are you doing up there?” “I’m reading!” Flora shouted back. “Remember the contract!” her mother shouted. “Do not forget the contract!” At the beginning of summer, in a moment of weakness, Flora had made the mistake of signing a contract that said she would “work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature.” Those were the exact words of the contract. They were her mother’s words. Flora’s mother was a writer. She was divorced, and she wrote romance novels. Talk about idiotic high jinks. Flora hated romance novels. In fact, she hated romance. “I hate romance,” said Flora out loud to herself. She liked the way the words sounded. She imagined them floating above her in a comic-strip bubble; it was a comforting thing to have words I hate romance. hanging over her head. Especially negative words about romance. Flora’s mother had often accused Flora of being a “natural-born cynic.” Flora suspected that this was true. SHE WAS A NATURAL-BORN CYNIC WHO LIVED IN DEFIANCE OF CONTRACTS! Yep, thought Flora, that’s me. She bent her head and went back to reading about the amazing Incandesto. She was interrupted a few minutes later by a very loud noise. It sounded as if a jet plane had landed in the Tickhams’ backyard. “What the heck?” said Flora. She got up from her desk and looked out the window and saw Mrs. Tickham running around the backyard with a shiny, oversize vacuum cleaner. It looked like she was vacuuming the yard. That can’t be, thought Flora. Who vacuums their yard? Actually, it didn’t look like Mrs.