Saturday, May 10, 2014

Welcome to Chapter Chat

Welcome to Cooper's Chapter Chat, where you can read and provide a book review, share an anecdote, a strategy, a skill, a lesson, ask a question, share your thoughts, or leave a comment. 

Flora & Ulysses, Kate DiCamillo. The crazy adventures for little, cynical Flora begin when her next door neighbor, Tootie Tickham, receives a Ulysses Super Suction, Multi-Terrain 2000X vacuum cleaner for her birthday and it sucks up a hungry, unassuming squirrel. Quick thinking from her go to comic book, The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto, she gives the squirrel CPR and names him Ulysses. Their friendship begins. Flora’s detached, divorced, cigarette smoking, romance novelist mother, Phyllis, finds her daughter to be too emotionally attached to the squirrel. She demands George, Flora’s father, to capture the “diseased” squirrel, hit him over the head and bury him, but when he won’t do it, Phyllis kidnaps him herself. Flora, Tootie and William Spiver (Tootie’s great nephew) set out to stop her mother, using her shepherdess lamp, named Mary Ann, as hostage whom Flora’s mother prefers over her.


The zaniness of the story would make this Newbery winner a fun read aloud. It could also be suggested for unmotivated, yet capable readers because of the many comic like illustrations. Kate DiCamillo also wrote The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, all award winning books.