by Kate DiCamillo; illus. by K.G. Campbell

Candlewick Press, 2013

Image from author’s website

Now, I know that this is not some surprise treasure I have unearthed. It did win the Newbery. I have, however, been burned by Newbery winners before, and I always take award winners with a grain of salt. But my immediate response to this book was: “Holy bagumba! It melted my socks off!”

I read a great interview with Kate DiCamillo from Candlewick (I found it through a link from her site), in which she gives Candlewick credit for the book’s format. I’m sure glad those folks had the idea, and that Kate DiCamillo was good-natured enough to try it. The humorous illustrations add a lot of fun to the story, and create a nice echo of Flora’s love of comics.  Speaking of comics, there was some fantastic world-building going on: the Amazing Incandesto and the bonus comics felt entirely real. And, on the subject of comics, even though most of the book is prose, it extols the virtues of reading comics. Flora’s mother is a writer, and disapproves of Flora’s choice of reading material. And though “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,'” it is the comics that give Flora a connection with her father, a sense of adventure, a great imagination, and a pretty incredible vocabulary (p5).

And it is with these powers that Flora rescues Ulysses the squirrel and sees in him something special. She also learns to see specialness in other people, including the most excellent characters Tootie, William Spiver, and Dr. Meescham. I loved the way the characters were fleshed out as multidemensional, fallible. William Spiver’s blindness gives an especially tender example (I don’t want to add any spoilers). 

Bonus points: Poetry! Divorce!