Unusual or odd in behaviour; charmingly strange

📝 The eccentric inventor kept a pet parrot that recited maths tables.

📖 The story fills its world with eccentric characters — a poetry-typing squirrel, a blind boy of enormous words, and a wise, peculiar old woman named Dr. Meescham.

A complete loss of hope

📝 She sank into despair when she realised the last train had gone.

📖 As her mother's plans against Ulysses grow clearer, Flora feels close to despair, terrified she cannot keep her squirrel safe.

To irritate or frustrate someone intensely

📝 It exasperated the teacher to repeat the same instruction five times.

📖 Ulysses exasperates Flora's mother, who cannot understand why her daughter insists on keeping a wild squirrel in the house.

To comfort someone who is sad or disappointed

📝 She tried to console her friend after the team lost the final.

📖 When Flora is at her lowest, it is the unlikely friends around her — William Spiver, Dr. Meescham — who console her and remind her she is not alone.

A sudden good idea, or the feeling that makes you want to create something

📝 The crashing waves gave the painter the inspiration for her best work.

📖 Flora herself becomes Ulysses's inspiration; the love he feels for her flows straight into the poems he types.

A line or section of a poem; poetry itself

📝 She wrote a few lines of verse on the back of her birthday card.

📖 Ulysses pours his feelings into verse, tapping out poems on the typewriter that are far better than anyone expects from a squirrel.

A machine with keys for printing letters onto paper, used before computers

📝 Grandpa still bashes out his letters on a clattering old typewriter.

📖 The old typewriter becomes Ulysses's voice — the way this wordless creature speaks his heart to the people he loves.

A strong feeling that someone or something is worthless or beneath you

📝 He looked at the cheating player with utter contempt.

📖 Flora's mother looks at Ulysses with open contempt, seeing only a filthy rodent where Flora sees a hero.

Unfriendly, aggressive feelings or behaviour

📝 There was open hostility between the two rival teams.

📖 The hostility between Flora and her mother deepens, with the little squirrel caught helplessly in the middle.

Given or done unwillingly, with reluctance

📝 After the match, the captain offered a grudging handshake to the winners.

📖 Even Flora's father offers only grudging support at first, torn between his daughter's love for Ulysses and his ex-wife's demands.

A surprising fact that is made known; a sudden realisation

📝 It was a revelation to learn that her quiet neighbour had once been a spy.

📖 Each chapter brings a small revelation — about William Spiver's past, about Flora's parents, about how much these lonely people need one another.

Unkind laughter or mockery aimed at someone

📝 He feared the ridicule of his classmates if he answered wrongly.

📖 Flora braces herself for ridicule whenever she speaks of her superhero squirrel, certain the grown-ups will only laugh at her.

A feeling that someone or something does not deserve respect

📝 She pushed the cold soup away with disdain.

📖 Phyllis treats both the squirrel and her daughter's hopes with disdain, dismissing them as silly and beneath her notice.

Clever, quick humour; the ability to say sharp, funny things

📝 Her quick wit had the whole table laughing within minutes.

📖 William Spiver's endless talk is full of wit, and his clever, funny remarks slowly begin to win Flora over.

A wonderful, astonishing thing; or to be filled with wonder

📝 The ancient bridge was a marvel of clever engineering.

📖 However much the grown-ups sneer, Ulysses remains a marvel — a small creature doing impossible, beautiful things.