With a title like Flora and Ulysses, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking the story was about, well, people named Flora and Ulysses. And as it turns out, that's exactly what the story is about, aside from the fact that Ulysses just so happens to be a squirrel. The title clues us in to the fact that these two share the spotlight in the book, setting us up to understand that it's not just about an unlikely superhero's journey; it's about his trusty friend, too.
You might have heard of Ulysses, or Odysseus, as he is called in Homer's Odyssey, the epic poem that narrates his super long trip home from the Trojan War. Our hero takes his name from the mythological warrior, just like Flora gets her name from the goddess of plants and flowers. If you want to know more about this, be sure to swing by the "Character Clues" section.
This book takes the names of a warrior and goddess but knocks them off their pedestals a little bit, revealing the ways that ordinary people make heroic quests in their daily lives. Even though these two partners in crime have some special powers, they still have a bunch of annoying stuff to deal with, too, like Flora's mom trying to kill Ulysses, or everyone in the diner freaking out when the see a squirrel. The point that emerges, though, is that no matter how average we think we are, we are living lives worthy of literary epics.