Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

This is one of those books where the concerning content can easily get lost because of the enjoyable feel and high quality of the writing, but it actually brings a decent amount of both modern and postmodern unfortunate content to young readers. We will attempt to capture it here so you have the full picture when considering for your reader. The modern elements are seen mostly in the characters. The book opens with a man bringing a vacuum as a gift to a woman, who in response is extremely rude to him (meant to be humorous). When we meet Flora, a young girl who is the main character, she is purposely ignoring her mother (young readers get the sense that Flora is much more intelligent and ‘right’ than both her parents, such as when read “But these were the types of idiotic words parents speak”). Then she expressly refuses to answer her mother if she calls her “Flora Bella” (blatant disrespect). Young readers read her thinking “She didn’t have to listen to her mother, or anyone else for that matter”. She also shoves a neighbor and tells her “Move out of the way”. Flora is said to be a cynic so she says things like not caring if her mother loves her or not because of that. She says things like “You stupid lamp. Mind your business” and “If you’re such a great shepherdess, where are the rest of your sheep, huh?”. She tells her friend, “That’s stupid”. She rudely answers a waitress who asks her a simple question. Her mother, we are told, writes ‘romance novels’ as her profession (a strange selection by the author for a kid’s book). Dad is great in a lot of ways, but comes across as a weak pushover in the presence of a group of very strong female characters. For instance, he says to leave Ulysses in the car, but she refuses and he simply gives in and tells her to just keep him in the box with the lid on, to which she agrees, but then immediately takes the lid off when she gets inside. Flora’s parents have had a divorce (the modern norm in books) and we read a flashback line where her dad tells Flora “I think that your mother is so in love with her books that she doesn’t love me anymore”. The postmodern elements come in the hinting around at the nature of God and the universe. William, a boy who is another major character, remarks, “Why does it have to mean anything? The world is a random place”. Later he makes the dangerous and misguided statement, “I am telling the truth. My truth” and “The truth is a slippery thing. I doubt that you will ever get to The Truth. You may get to a version of the truth. Truth? I doubt it very seriously". A female doctor character who is the most educated character is speaking of her deceased husband and after initially saying he is “singing with the angels” she corrects herself saying, “I hope that he is somewhere singing… but who knows where he is or what he’s doing?” This same character goes on to introduce young readers to Pascal’s wager, which she summarizes as, “Pascal had it that since it could not be proven whether God existed, one might as well believe that He did, because there was everything to gain by believing and nothing to lose. That’s how it is for me. What do I lose if I choose to believe? Nothing!”. This is such a dangerous and sad statement. She later remarks that “The world cannot be explained”. Oddly, at a stressful time Flora’s mom starts unapologetically chain smoking. When Flora asks her about this she simply replies, “It seemed the wrong time to stop. I am under a lot of pressure right now”. To make this worse, this is captured in illustrations that honestly make mom look really cool while she is doing this. This is never shown as wrong. Other things to be aware of: The illustrations are in a format we can really only describe as a bit odd. Disturbing is too strong of a word, but again an interesting choice for the approach for a kid’s book. At one point the book indicates, “The ladies in her mother’s romance novels put their hands on their bosoms and gasped” While she eventually fixes this, when Flora threatens to leave to go live with her dad, mom tells her, “Go right ahead. It would really make my life easier”. Mom starts acting very strangely and Flora says, “It was almost as if her mother were possessed” (this leads to the book indicating that “most likely” people who were thought to be possessed in the past really weren’t). For some reason the illustrator adds Flora looking at a lamps and saying, “you stupid little shepherdess”. The doctor mentioned above oddly mentions trolls being in her hometown several times, with no context as if it were true. The word “holy” is used flippantly over and over again throughout, typically as “holy bagumba”. Also, “for Heaven’s sake”. The following terms are used: idiotic.