FLORA & ULYSSES

A vacuum cleaner accident is the unlikely origin story here: it's how an ordinary squirrel ends up with superpowers, and how a self-described cynic named Flora ends up as his unlikely owner in Kate DiCamillo's novel. The story keeps one foot in ordinary family trouble, including Flora's parents' separation, and one foot in full cartoon absurdity, moving between the two without either side undercutting the other. National Geographic Books publishes it in hardcover for ages 8 to 12.

Part of what makes it distinctive on the page is structural: short graphic-novel-style sequences are dropped into the prose at key moments, giving Ulysses's more superhero-ish scenes their own visual panel rather than describing the action in straight text. That format switch keeps a reader who might resist a "squirrel gets powers" premise engaged through the sillier stretches, while the family material underneath gives the humor somewhere to land emotionally. Underneath the laughs is a kid who wants her family situation taken seriously, and the book never loses sight of that even in its silliest, most cartoonish stretches.