Where It All Goes Down
Modern Day
Flora and Ulysses is set in a modern day world that looks a lot like home. After all, Flora is just like any other ten-year-old… aside from the fact that she obsessively reads Terrible Things Can Happen to You! Her life is probably similar to yours in plenty of ways, minus the poetry-typing, superhero-flying squirrel, that is. We think the author purposely keeps Flora's surroundings as normal as possible simply because of the fact that supernatural stuff is happening all around her.
Think about it. The supernatural stuff isn't exactly leaping tall buildings or shooting webs from fingertips in this one—instead it's quieter, and mainly takes the form of a squirrel writing poetry. So by keeping everything else familiar to readers, we can really focus on the impact tiny Ulysses with his literary super skills makes in Flora's life. This isn't a novel about saving the world—it's a novel about saving the heart of one young girl, of encouraging her to love instead of, say, slaughtering monsters.