Parent/Child Relationship

This novel centers around Flora Belle Buckman, a young girl whose parents have recently divorced. Flora idolizes her father, the one parent who spent the most time with her and shared with her a love of comic books. Unfortunately, Flora has been forced to remain with her mother. Flora feels that her mother is more interested in her new career as a romance novel author than in her own daughter. This leaves Flora feeling resentment toward her mother.

As the novel advances, the reader learns that Flora believes her mother does not love her, but instead loves a lamp shaped like a shepherdess. For this reason, it is easy for Flora to imagine that her mother is her enemy. When Flora hears that her mother wants the squirrel she has recently befriended killed, Flora sees this as an irrational act of an arch-nemesis. Flora...