Customer Reviews

Flour Babies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Books concerning teenage fatherhood have blossomed over the last few years. I'm not certain what the cause of this trend is, and I don't know where it will end. Certainly some fabulous books have resulted, of course. The multi-award winning, "First Part Last", is probably the best known of these adolescent daddy stories. Lesser known, and far cheerier, is the delightful "Flour Babies" by Anne Fine. Taking a concept that has been used in everything from an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" to an episode of "The Cosby Show", this story concentrates on a boy, his adorable sack of flour, and his attempts to come to terms with his own absentee pop.

When Mr. Cassidy gets stuck with the worst possible students in Room 8 he isn't surprised. When he is stuck giving these same students a lame project for the upcoming Science Fair he remains unsurprised. But when the project turns out to concern Flour Babies, he's livid. In this project the teacher must hand a six-pound burlap sack of flour to each of his students. Over the course of several weeks these lagabout kids must take extra special care of their new babies. Of course, Cassidy is convinced that this project will only lead to flour exploding in his classroom at the hands of his rowdy kids. When the biggest toughest underachiever of them all, Simon Martin, misunderstands and thinks that the end of the project will result in a grand flour baby kick-off, he throws himself headlong into his baby's care. As time goes by, Simon begins to care deeply for his baby and his thoughts turn to the father that abandoned him when he was a babe. Through his own slow thought processes, Simon learns to understand what fatherhood entails and what it truly means to be unencumbered and young.

This book was originally published in Britain and as such I initially assumed that it took place overseas. But about the time Simon's mom comments that his deadbeat dad took off for Chicago when he left, I came to the horrific realization that this book was trying to be American. Trying and failing. I mean, honestly. This is the kind of book that contains sentences like, "his dad was a duffer" and has characters that say "Sir" all the time and have names like "Simon". Also, the book kind of decomposes towards the end. While the storyline up until the last 2 or so chapters has been fine, suddenly Anne Fine tacks on a Mel Brooks type of let's-make-everything-crazy finale. You've got a previously sympathetic teacher giving a ridiculous (and increasing) number of detentions, a crazy escape via running along the tops of the school's desks, and a grand finish of thick floating flour everywhere. I only wish the writing could have kept up, but it didn't.

Which isn't to say there isn't a lot going for this book. Admittedly, the students keep breaking into bizarre non-teenage sentences from time to time but they're enjoyable characters. For his part, Simon is a kind of relief to read. I was convinced that this book would turn out to be another tale in which a wise but crazy teacher gives his tough students a true challenge and at the end they all beat the science nerds because someone actually took the time to believe in them. Not a chance. Simon Martin is a good example of that. He's unrepentantly thick at the beginning of the book and though he's worked out some issues by the end, he's unrepentantly thick there too. And finally, the biggest and best reason to read this book; it's darned funny. I think I was officially won over when the teacher watching the detention students found herself hoping that Simon would entertain her that day with the Bloodied Tongue. This is where Simon empties surreptitiously an entire cartridge of red ink from a pen onto his tongue and then, "let this gory-looking monstrosity out of his mouth for the whole rest of the detention, rendering her incapable of eating her sandwich but amusing her mightily". Any book that uses humor correctly has my love already.

"Flour Babies" apparently won the British Carnegie Medal (which corresponds to our Newbery Medal over here stateside) which surprises me a little. I think it's great but I wouldn't necessarily cover it with awards. Still, if you're looking for a fun read that's not only amusing but also great to pick up and reread, I think this book's for you. Three cheers for those little sack o' flours and the boys that love 'em so.

Flour Babies by Anne Fine was an okay book to read, but like other people say, I have read better, and anyways I rate this book four stars. It's about this boy named Simon Martin. He is in this class, and the teacher assigns them this assignment in which they have to take care of these sacks of flour as if they were babies for twenty-one days. He soon find out that the task indeed is quite hard. Taking care of the 'baby' makes him think about his own personal life, and why did his father leave the family when he was only six weeks old.

The flour babies book is about a class of boys(4c)who have a flour baby each to look after for three weeks. Also Simon Martin wants to find out about his father and Sajid Mahmoud opened a creche for the flour babies.

I thought that the book was good in some chapters but, in others it was bad, firstly i thought it was good because it was interesting, funny and a lot happened and some of the words were difficult to understand.

Some of the words i didn't understand are meagre, unwieldy, banished and credentials.

I think i would recommend it to everyone that likes a bit of comedy. I wouldn't recommend it to smaller children under 10 years.

Some of the characters i thought was good were Martin Simon, Simon Martin,Sajid Mahmoud, Mr Cartwright and Dr Feltham.

Anne Fine deals with an important issue which affects many children today - that of one parent families with wit, sensitivity and realism. Simon isn't magically transformed into a model pupil but then we wouldn't want him to be. The characters have depth and are characters that are easy to identify with. Anne Fine never gets over sentimental when Simon is reflecting on the fact that his father left him when he was six months old but nether does she gloss over Simon's feelings. A very funny, readable book.

FLOUR BABIES was a great book. I enjoyed reading it because it kept you wondering would happen next. The part I liked the best was how Simon kept finding out piece by piece of the song his father was singing when he left Simon and his mother. I also liked how you never knew what the kids doing the flour baby project would do with their flour babies next. In this book the author used great characterization. In my opinion, books with lots of characters in them are more exciting to read. Plus, when each character has a different point of view of things that is very interesting. For example the students doing the flour baby project all have different opinions about the flour babies. Most think that it is a horrible idea, and Simon thinks it is a great idea. Then there are the people who just don't know what to think. The last thing that I really liked was the whole point of the book. I learned so much on how hard it would be to be a parent when you are still in school. For example, when he has to go to soccer practice and his mom won't watch his flour baby for him. As you can see, this book has many good points. I really recommend that anyone who gets a chance to read this book does do this. I really enjoyed this book, and I hope everyone else will too!

I thought "Flour Babies" by Anne Fine, was a wonderful book. I think the main character 'Simon" is interesting because ofthe way he changed from a noisy, mischievious punk, into a kind and studifull student. I really thought it was touching how he began to think of his flour babie as a real child, and how he learns more about the father who had left Simon and his mother just weeks after he was born. After I started reading Flour Babies I could hardly put it down. Anyone who is interested in a funny yet touching story, Flour Babies is the book for you.

I think the biggest problem I had with this book was the fact that my copy was published in the US, and the publishers, or possibly the author herself, made a few stupid changes to make the story take place here. The kids do not speak like American kids and the problems of the American delinquent are badly missed in the story. My other problems with this book, ones that should be problems on either side of the pond, are the timelines in the flashback scenes, and the round and overly aloof way everyone's problems are solved or forgotten in favor of a dramatic and prophetic conclusion. It's a good idea, it just not a great execution.

Flour Babies is the story of fatherless Simon Martin, a teenager attending an unnamed boys' school in an unnamed part of what is obviously urban Britain. Owing to a series of unfortunate events (involving a clerical error), Simon is chosen to pick which activity his class will be doing for the Science Fair. The class lands up with Flour Babies, a parent-child experiment in which each boy in the class is entrusted with a six-pound bag of flour for four weeks.

That's the set-up for this bizarre tale.

I don't believe that books have age ranges per se, but I would definitely not recommend this book to young children or older teenagers. Young children will likely struggle with the range of vocabulary used (Anne Fine casually drops words such as "inoculation", "industriously" "maligned" and "colleague") and the discussions about parenthood scattered throughout the novel. Meanwhile, older teenagers may feel patronised by Simon's unrealistic musings on the grit and strength of teachers and parents; his contrived change from clumsy thug to sensitive, mature young man; and the way the characters speak. This in particular was odd.

To illustrate the unrealistic quality of the dialogue, here is a quotation from p56 (my edition):

"I thought my mother was a real MEANIE for not looking after [the flour baby] for a MEASLY two hours while I did my football. After all, she's had enough practise looking after people. She's looked after me for 122,650 hours, if Foster's calculator works all right".

In the book, Simon and his friends refer to geeks as "ear'oles" (?) sensitive people as "major wallies", and elderly ladies as "interfering old trouts". This bizarre slang reminds me of Just William and his contemporaries, although there is no indication in the book that the story is set in the Just William era (1920s to 1950s). Why Anne Fine chose to make the characters speak in the colourful, 50's-boarding-school way that they do is not clear - perhaps the use of slang stems from her love of Just William.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this story. Mainly the humour consists of caustic comments by the class teacher, and conversations between the boys and the staff. (One of the funniest bits of the book is when Sajid Mahmoud explains why he scraped his meat stew, made in Food Technology, into the bin - after three years he's still angry about the teacher's reaction to that.)This book would suit a person with an ear for dialogue and an interest in books about family relationships.

The book seemed to go nowhere and was very unentertaining. There wasn't much action in the book at all. I don't recommend this book by any means.

Flour babies by Anne Fine, winner of two prestigious British book awards, is a funny yet deadly serious story of a class of boys which by false persuasion take on looking after a 6 pound bag of flour, as if a real baby, for 3 weeks.
The book is based around Simon Martin, part of 4c, who 15 years before was walked out on by his Father. This year's science fair was being planned, as always, by Dr Feltham, who thinks that everything should be perfect and correct. After giving 4c a choice of boring subjects, flour babies was picked to the class's dismay. This is until Simon overhears a conversation between Mr Cartwright, teacher of 4c, and Dr Feltham talking about the project and mentioning a glorious explosion of flour and so persuades the whole class that it was a good choice and it would be the best science fair yet.
When looking after the flour babies Simon discovers the truth about his dad, his feeling towards babies and who really cares about him, along with whom he truly cares about and how little he's done for them before.
Although I didn't like the whole idea of it I thought it was pretty good, the humour breaking up the serious stuff and making it a lot more realistic for a class at secondary school. Also the length of the book was just about right to keep you waiting but not for too long, with funny mini stories along the way. One of these involved one of my favourite characters, Sajid Mahmoud, who opened up a crèche for people to have their bags of flour looked after-at a price of course-because business is business where money and Sajid are involved.