Inspiration can spring from unlikely sources, as Flora & Ulysses author Kate DiCamillo knows well. In anticipation of the film adaptation's release on Disney+, she revealed how her mother's vacuum cleaner and an encounter with a dramatic squirrel paved the way for Flora Buckman and her superpowered pal Ulysses.
"So my mom had a vacuum cleaner that she loved, and she passed away in 2009... In the last year of her life, she kept on saying, 'What's gonna happen to the vacuum cleaner when I'm gone?' And I was like, 'Why are we worried about the vacuum cleaner? There are bigger things to worry about.' But when she did, I did as I promised her I would do. I took the vacuum cleaner, so that it would have a good home," DiCamillo shared.
"Except that my mom had a cat -- the world's most evil cat, named Mildew. I'm [allergic] to cats, and I couldn't bring the vacuum cleaner into the house because of all the Mildew hair in it, so I had to leave it out in the garage," she explained. "Every time I pulled into the garage, I would see the vacuum cleaner, and it would make my heart hurt. It would make me miss my mother."
"Then, the spring after my mother died, there was this squirrel on the front steps of my house, draped dramatically across the steps, clearly in distress," she recalled. "He wouldn't move when I got close to him and I didn't know what to do for him. I called one of my best friends, who lives a block away. I said, 'Help me. There's a squirrel dying on my front steps!' She said, 'Do you have a T-shirt and a shovel?' And I said, 'I do.' And she said, 'Get the T shirt, get the shovel. I will come over there and whack him over the head.' That's what she said."
"All of this made me think about E.B. White's essay, 'Death of a Pig.' How he's going out to feed a pig and thought about ways to save a pig's life. I thought about ways to save the squirrel's life and I combined it with the vacuum cleaner in the garage, and that's the story," she concluded.
"The squirrel left when he heard my friend saying, 'Whack him over the head with a shovel,'" she added. "The squirrel was like, 'I'm no dummy.'"
Flora & Ulysses follows Flora Buckman (Matilda Lawler), a cynical young girl struggling with her parents' separation. She soon finds a little magic in her life after she witnesses a rogue vacuum accident, which turns an average squirrel into a bonafide superhero. Together with her new friend Ulysses, she goes on an adventure that renews her love of superheroes and may even bring her family back together again.
Starring Matilda Lawler, Alyson Hannigan, Ben Schwartz, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth, Danny Pudi, Anna Deavere Smith and Kate Micucci, Flora & Ulysses is now available on Disney+.
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