Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

I listened to this cute Newbery award winner, but I think I should have just read it. It says it's "the Illuminated Adventures" and I missed out on the cartoon strip drawings that are apparently in the book. However, it would have taken me much longer to get around to reading it.

This was a cute story about a girl and her superhero squirrel friend who gets new powers after getting sucked up by a super-powerful vacuum cleaner. Flora has to try to take care of Ulysses when his arch-nemesis--her mother--decides he must be vanquished. I loved how there were deeper parts of the story, about Flora's worry that her mother doesn't really love her, and William Spyver's (her neighbor) feeling of neglect when he is "banished" by his mother. I loved the squirrel poetry that Ulysses types on the typewriter, and the many sweet things he learns from the hilarious Dr. Michum ("I will always turn back towards you" and true love is getting up in the night to get sardines for someone who can't sleep and sitting there while they eat them in bed). However, I wasn't necessarily obsessed with this story and I don't know that I would read it again. It was cute, but not super memorable to me. I didn't actually blame Flora's mother at all for wanting to get rid of Ulysses, because who would want a squirrel in their house?