Flour Babies is a day school novel for young adults, written by Anne Fine and published by Hamilton 1992. It features a group "science experiment" in a classroom full of poor students (underachievers). "When his class of underachievers is assigned to spend three torturous weeks taking care of their own "babies" in the form of bags of flour, Simon makes amazing discoveries about himself while coming to terms with his long-absent father."
Fine won the annual Carnegie Medal in Literature from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. She is one of seven writers with two such honors (no one has won three), having won the 1986 Medal for Goggle-Eyes. The earlier book uses a day school frame to recount a story of family life.
Little, Brown published the first U.S. edition in 1994. The teachers were renamed and the students were moved from "class 4C" to "Room 8" for the American audience. Some libraries report the title Flour babies and the boys of Room 8.
Read more about Flour Babies: Synopsis, Name Device
Famous quotes containing the words flour and/or babies:
“But age, allas that al wol envenime,
Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith—
Lat go, farewel, the devel go therwith!
The flour is goon, ther is namore to telle:”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“The loosening, for some people, of rigid role definitions for men and women has shown that dads can be great at calming babies—if they take the time and make the effort to learn how. It’s that time and effort that not only teaches the dad how to calm the babies, but also turns him into a parent, just as the time and effort the mother puts into the babies turns her into a parent.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)