Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures
By Kate DiCamillo
Illustrated By K.G. Campbell
Candlewick Press, 2013
Grade level: 3 and up
Fountas and Pinnell: U
Lexile: 520 L
Accelerated Reader: 4.3
Suggested Delivery: Small group/Read Aloud
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| Author: Kate DiCamillo |
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| Illustrator: K.G. Campbell |
Summary:
Flora Belle Buckman is a ten year-old self-proclaimed cynic who is currently enduring the struggle of being in the middle of her parents' divorce. One day when Flora was watching her crazy neighbor, Mrs. Tickham, vacuum the outdoors she witnesses Mrs. Tickham accidentally vacuum up a squirrel! Miraculously the squirrel lives, thanks to Flora's knowledge on CPR from the comic book she once read, Terrible Things Can Happen to You. Flora is convinced that the squirrel's resurrection is a sign that it must have special superhero powers. Flora decides Ulysses is an appropriate name to give the squirrel, since that is the name of the vacuum that almost killed him. Flora befriends Ulysses and uses the famous book, Terrible Things Can Happen to You to help her figure out if Ulysses truly is a superhero. Flora's mother wants Ulysses dead, as she sees the squirrel as just a rodent, and is not aware of his potential powers. Flora and her mother's relationship seems to become even worse after the encounter with Ulysses, but as Flora and Ulysses' road to self-discovery continues, Flora realizes just how much her parents really do love her.
Key Words/Phrases to Describe the Book:
1. Adventurous
2. Road to self-discovery
3. Heroic
4. Friendship
5. Possibility of hope
Key Vocabulary:
Nefarious (ch. 28): evil; immoral
Surreptitiously (ch. 29): secretly; stealthily
Preternaturally (ch. 33): unnaturally; seemingly conflicts with nature
Imperative (ch. 34): very important
Notorious (ch. 34): famous for doing something wrong or negative
Conjured (ch. 38): brought an image to someone's mind
Resources:
Flora & Ulysses Trailer is a fun and engaging pre-text activity to do with students. This short YouTube clip is filled with fun music, interesting pictures, and short blurbs that give the reader insight as to what they can expect to discover through their reading journey of Flora & Ulysses.
Kate DiCamillo's webpage is an engaging post-text website for students to read through. It will help readers understand author Kate DiCamillo's thought process while writing Flora & Ulysses. This webpage has a Q&A where readers are able to to interact with the author, and can ask any questions about parts of the book that may have left them confused.
Teaching Suggestions:
- Have students write down what parts of the novel made it a fiction based novel.
- Go over Tier II vocabulary words with students and have students create other sentences with the Tier II words.
- Have students take turns in small groups reading aloud parts of the book to work on fluency development.
Comprehension Strategies:
Before:Have students make predictions/inferences on what the book is going to be about based strictly on the title and the picture displayed on the cover. Ask them what they think the author means by the phrase "illuminated adventures"?
During: As a class, create a character map to explore the relationships in the book. Flora is the first character the reader gets to know, so start off with her name in the middle. While reading the book have the students tell you what new characters are mentioned and write their names around Flora's. Have the students draw lines, connecting characters together who interact with one another throughout the novel. By the end of the book, students will be able to map out all the different relationships that took place through their time of reading.
After: To help further increase vocabulary recognition, create a worksheet of sentence passages from Flora & Ulysses that used Tier II vocabulary. Write out the sentence, but leave a blank where the Tier II word should be. Have a word bank at the bottom for the students to use. This activity should be done after reading the book because then students have already heard the word being used in context and are able to think back from what they have already read and apply what they comprehended.
Writing Activity:
Throughout the novel, the author makes it apparent that both Flora and William Spiver need a friend. A writing activity that would correlate with the theme of friendship would be to have students write about how they personally make friends, and the things they do to become friends with one another. Students should touch on the actions Flora and William Spiver take to make/become friends. Students will be able to write a short
paragraph about friendship using Flora and William Spiver as their examples.
Bibliography:
DiCamillo, Kate, and K. G. Campbell. Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures. Candlewick, 2013. Print.
