about the book
One star of this story is a girl: Flora, the cynic, who has read every issue of the pessimistic comic Terrible Things Can Happen to You!. The advice she finds there has helped her to tolerate the changes in her life happening from her parents’ divorce.
The other is a squirrel.
As Flora watched her neighbors trying out their new “Ulysses Super-Suction Multi-Terrain 2000X” vacuum cleaner, the machine got loose and its “multi-terrain” feature made it zoom all around their backyard.
The poor squirrel never saw it coming!
When Flora revives the squirrel, she finds that the little guy can now understand human speech. He is also super strong and super fast.
Flora decides to name the re-born squirrel Ulysses. Together, the girl and the squirrel set out to find something worth doing in life. In the process, Flora may just lose the cynical side of herself to something better.
about the author
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kate DiCamillo suffered from chronic pneumonia at 5, so her mother, a teacher, moved her to the warmer land of Clermont, Florida.
Her dad stayed in Pennsylvania to sell his orthodontics practice and ended up never joining them. So Kate and her brother were raised by just her mom. Clermont was a small, slow-paced town where people said ain’t, ya’ll, and ma’am—and Kate loved it.
When Kate was at the University of Florida studying for a degree in English, she was given the assignment to write 500 words describing anything. On the day before the paper was due, Kate stopped outside the Winn-Dixie grocery store, where she spied a woman with purple fingernail polish, bright blue eye shadow, and a tambourine singing and sitting on a hundred pound bag of dog chow. Kate went home and wrote about the woman. The teacher was impressed with Kate’s observations, and Kate turned the experience into the Newbery Honor book Because of Winn-Dixie.
Kate describes herself as being a short, loud, single person who hates to cook but loves to eat! She doesn’t think of herself as a writer, but more of a story teller for children and adults. Kate currently makes her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And her first name is really Katrina, not Katherine!
Sources:
Author website
Author interview : PBS Newshour
Author biography: Wikipedia
Author biography: Book Browse
Also by Kate DiCamillo:
The Magician’s Elephant. Candlewick Press. 2009.
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Candlewick Press. 2006.
The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread. Candlewick Press. 2003.
Tiger Rising. Candlewick Press. 2001.
Because of Winn-Dixie. Candlewick Press. 2000.
about the illustrator
Keith Gordon Campbell was born in the exotic, sweltering wilderness of Kenya, a place full of wildebeest and other creatures that few westerners have ever seen up close. His stay in Kenya didn’t last long, however, as he was taken to what he calls a “damp and salty island nation in the Far North,” otherwise known as Scotland.
Keith’s school lived in the shadow cast by a black castle. The school is very old, with turrets and probably a few ghosts, Keith guesses, but this only served to fuel his fascination with the gothic, ghoulish, and ghastly. He never came to like sports. He would much rather sit in a possibly ghost-occupied corner of his castle-like school and draw funny characters, then make up stories to go with them. After growing up a bit, Keith attended the University of Edinburgh and got a Masters in Art History.
Art History was okay, but not really a career-worthy pursuit. Somehow, and he still doesn’t know how, Keith ended up doing interior design in Hollywood, California! This was pretty neat actually, but Keith never forgot his love for drawing and story.
Soon he got the crazy idea that he had enough drawings and short stories to make up a portfolio, and he began sending manuscripts to publishers. At last someone gave Keith a break, and that led to Lester’s Dreadful Sweaters, the first book Keith wrote and illustrated himself.
Today Keith lives in California and no longer does interior design. He is a full-time writer and illustrator.
Source:
Illustrator website
Illustrator biography: Kids Can Press
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