Flour Babies.

Por: Anne Fine

The book tells Simon Martin’s story: an average rebel boy that studies in class 4C. In the Book, the
class professor (Mr. Cartright) is told, to give a science project for Mr. Felltham’s Science Fair
without any good options. Among the choices they had, they randomly choose to have an
experiment which raised many doubts from the students: “Children” the paper said.

The science project for Mr. Felltham’s Science Day consisted in a really “girly thing to do” (as all
the students said): each of the nineteen students had to carry a Flour Baby within 3 weeks and write
a “Baby Book” with daily reports; Although the idea was controversial to them, they agreed to do it
with a flour explosion mischief in mind.

Throughout the experiment, the majority of the students got in trouble assuming a parenting roll,
though Simon Martin didn’t, he started developing a strong bond with her flour bag and “she” even
made him wonder about why his dad left him after only six weeks of being born. He reflects
himself in the bag and starts’ knowing the weight and issues parenthood carries; he started worrying
about his Flour baby and compromising his total attention to her –unlike the other students-. Simon
has a quick approach to lessons like illness and numbers throughout the experiment, but the most
important thing for him, is that he has a reason for is dad’s absence: Parenting is really hard and he
was too young for that.

He came to this conclusion after doing 18 days of constant babysitting. He was really tired when the
project was over but he promised himself one day he would raise a real baby like and never
abandoned his child for anything in the world. So naturally at the 18th day, when the project was
over he was grateful and melancholic about it.

Mr. Cartright went to pick his flour baby for the science fair to which he kindly replied “I want to
keep the baby”. Mr. Cartright had had an inner look of his project and let him keep the “baby”
Although the other students made fun of him, he was clear that he wanted to keep that as a souvenir
to remind himself about happiness and love.

Martin was supposed to carry all the babies to Mr. Felltham’s Science classroom but he didn’t. He
wanted to think about the lesson the baby gave to him. It wasn’t a usual day to him. This day he
comprehended that he had be a better son, a better self. He was still a kid; he still wanted to do the
flour explosion. But he just let the other kids kick their “babies” and kept his. While he walked out
of a classroom full of flour he remembered all the efforts that his mom did for him.

He came back home, put the flour bag on his room’s souvenir box and ran to his mother’s room to
hug her. He thanked her for being “a mom” & “a dad” for him and, also thanked her for assuming
all the weight of parenting by herself; he promised he will make an effort to become closer to her.
He was grateful with his life and that was all that mattered.