Real Science (Flour Babies - Anne Fine)

Member Name: clare_7

Product:	Flour Babies - Anne Fine
Date:	20/02/02 (1531 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very well written, Funny, Moving and surprising

Disadvantages: none

I think this book would have to be at least number 5 in my list of favourite children's books. It's funny and original and nearly made me cry. here's why:

Simon Martin is a member of class 4C, a bottom set secondary school group, made up of - according to Mr Cartright their teacher - 'the sads and the bads'. At the end of term, a science fair is to be held in school and each class is expected to contribute a project. None of the projects on the list are what 4C consider to be 'real science'. As you can imagine, this particular class aren't all that interested in science unless it involves blowing stuff up. So after mistakenly overhearing Mr Cartright talking about "over a hundred pounds of sifted, white flour exploding in his classroom," Simon manages to convince the rest of the class to choose flour babies as their project.

The idea is very simple: Each boy is given a sack of flour, with maybe a bonnet tied to it, or a face painted on the front. At the end of each week, the 'babies' are inspected and weighed. A diary is also to be kept by each boy, detailing their experiences with the flour babies. Any boy who fails to look after his baby, fails the project. Unfortunately for the boys, there's more to looking after their babies than they had first imagined. For example; what are they supposed to do with them during football practice? If they take them outside they get laughed at, if they leave them in the locker room they might get wet or trampled. Over the course of several chapters, they begin to realise just how hard it can be to look after something that's completely reliant on you:

DAY 1
I think the whole idea of carrying a flour baby around is completely stupid because she doesn't even cry or eat anything or mess any nappies. Still, mine has been a total drag all day. I thought my mother was a real meanie for not looking after her for a measley two ho
urs while I did football. After all she's had enough practice looking after people. She's looked after me for 122,650 hours if Foster's calculator works right.

For Simon this realisation goes a bit further. Simon's Dad left him and his Mum when Simon was quite young and he's always wondered whether or not it was his fault. When after a few weeks he looks at his flour baby and sees the mess she's managed to get into, seemingly all on her own after all the trouble he took looking after her, he begins to think about how hard it must be bringing up a real baby and how hard it must have been for his Dad. Simon eventually realises that there was nothing that he could have done to make his Dad stay - he just hadn't been ready for the responsibility of a baby.

There are some really funny moments in this book. One of the more enterprising of the boys opens a creche and charges the others to look after their babies. There's the part when the resonsibility becomes too much for some of 4C and they kick their babies into the canal. The relationships between Simon and his baby, and Simon and Mr Cartright is also very funny and moving. He really starts to care for his bag of flour, and as his teacher notices, he changes his opinion of Simon, and helps him to sort out his feelings about his Dad.

And do 4C get their flour explosion at the end? Read it and see.

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