Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures recap

Ten-year-old Flora Belle Buckman rescues a squirrel after a neighbor's vacuum cleaner sucks him up. The accident gives the squirrel, whom Flora names Ulysses, great strength, flight, human understanding, and the ability to write poetry. Flora, a self-declared cynic raised on superhero comics, decides he has an important destiny and may also have a dangerous enemy. Her divorced mother, Phyllis, regards Ulysses as a threat, while Flora's lonely father George, neighbor Tootie Tickham, Tootie's temporarily blind great-nephew William Spiver, and the perceptive Dr. Meescham join the widening adventure. Phyllis secretly removes Ulysses, prompting a search that exposes Flora's deeper fear that her mother does not love her. When the squirrel escapes and the family confronts one another, Phyllis assures Flora of her love, William regains his sight, and Ulysses returns. His final poem celebrates Flora and the world, leaving Flora less cynical and newly willing to trust love and wonder.

Flora Belle Buckman is reading a superhero comic despite her mother's demand that she read literature when she sees their neighbor Tootie Tickham lose control of a powerful new vacuum cleaner. The machine races across the yard and sucks up a squirrel. Guided by emergency advice remembered from her comics, Flora pulls the animal free and revives him. The squirrel wakes profoundly changed: he can understand Flora's words, feels an enlarged awareness of the world, and displays enough strength to lift the vacuum. Flora names him Ulysses after the machine. Her mother Phyllis, a romance novelist who disapproves of comics, does not yet understand what has entered the house. Flora interprets the accident as an origin story and begins to wonder whether Ulysses has become a superhero.

Ulysses reveals another power by typing a message at Phyllis's typewriter and composing words no ordinary squirrel could understand. Flora's father George arrives for one of his visits. Although still saddened by the divorce, he takes Flora's claims seriously enough to help. Tootie's great-nephew William Spiver also enters Flora's orbit; he speaks with adult formality and says that a family crisis has left him temporarily blind. Flora remains wary of both emotion and uncertainty, applying lessons from her survival comics to everything around her. Phyllis sees the squirrel as an unhealthy fixation and tells George that Ulysses must be dealt with. Flora instead becomes convinced that every superhero has an arch-nemesis and begins watching her mother as a possible danger to her friend.

George takes Flora and Ulysses out, with William joining them. At the Giant Do-Nut, the sight of a squirrel alarms the waitress and creates a commotion. Ulysses launches himself into the air, proving that he can fly, though his first trip is uncontrolled and destructive. The group eventually reaches George's apartment building and the home of Dr. Meescham, an elderly neighbor who receives impossible news without dismissing it. Her huge cat Mr. Klaus attacks, forcing Ulysses to use his strength and his friends to protect him. Dr. Meescham offers food and a patient hearing, and her stories help Flora consider that the universe may contain both terrible and wonderful surprises. Ulysses, meanwhile, is increasingly attached to Flora and experiences his new life through hunger, poetry, and love rather than through the heroic battle Flora expects.

Flora's suspicion of Phyllis deepens when she learns that her mother has asked George to put Ulysses in a sack and kill him with a shovel. George cannot carry out the plan and sides with Flora, while William and Tootie remain involved in keeping the squirrel safe. Beneath Flora's talk of villains lies a more painful conviction: Phyllis seems to love her writing and her shepherdess lamp, Mary Ann, more than she loves her daughter. William's blindness also begins to look less like a physical injury than a response to being sent away by his mother after an angry act involving her car. The children recognize in each other the damage caused by believing that a parent has rejected them. Ulysses writes and thinks about Flora with uncomplicated devotion, offering the very reassurance she finds hardest to accept from people.

Phyllis takes Ulysses and disappears with him, turning Flora's fear into an urgent rescue. Flora, George, William, Tootie, and Dr. Meescham piece together what has happened and search for the squirrel. Ulysses has been confined but manages to escape. The conflict between Flora and her mother can no longer be displaced onto comic-book ideas about heroes and enemies. William, confronting his own grief and anger, begins to abandon the blindness that has separated him from the world. Flora must decide whether she can accept help and believe declarations of love without demanding the certainty of a comic-book rule.

At the Buckman house, Phyllis admits that her attempt to get rid of Ulysses came from fear and confusion, not a wish to get rid of Flora. Mother and daughter finally say plainly that they love each other, answering the insecurity Flora has hidden beneath her cynicism. William permits himself to see again. Ulysses comes down safely and is reunited with Flora, while the assembled friends and family recognize that his transformation has brought their own concealed feelings into the open. The divorce and other losses are not undone, but George and Phyllis can stand together for their daughter without pretending that nothing changed. Ulysses writes a final poem for Flora, expressing his delight in her and in being alive. Flora ends the adventure able to meet love, hope, and the improbable world with less fear.

Flora, William, George, Tootie, and Dr. Meescham search for the missing Ulysses after Phyllis secretly takes him away. Ulysses escapes from confinement, and the pursuit forces mother and daughter to confront what each has feared: Flora believes she is unwanted, while Phyllis has acted from panic about losing her child. Phyllis admits her love for Flora, and Flora finally believes her. William's claimed blindness ends as he allows himself to see again. Ulysses returns safely and writes a poem for Flora, confirming that their friendship and the love surrounding them are real. George and Phyllis do not simply erase their divorce, but the family is able to speak honestly and reconnect. Flora's practiced cynicism gives way to hope and to an acceptance that astonishing things, including love, can be trusted.