Column: The Best Books Club, "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie," by Alan Bradley

I love quirky protagonists!

In “Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,” author Alan Bradley introduces one who definitely fits the bill. Flavia de Luce is a precocious 11-year-old chemistry whiz who specializes in poisons and is equal parts horrified and delighted when she discovers a dying stranger in the cucumber patch.

Like most juvenile heroines and heroes in literature and film — Anne of Green Gables, Madeline, Harry Potter, to name a few, as well as 99% of the Disney protagonists under the age of 18 — Flavia is not being raised by two parents. Her mother is deceased; her father is emotionally and — even before his arrest — physically absent most of the time.

Lack of parental control allows Flavia to live almost entirely unshackled by the constraints most children operate under. She is free to conduct all sorts of science experiments in her lab, and because she lives in a more innocent time — just five years after the end of WWII — she is free to roam around the countryside on Gladys.

Readers of all ages no doubt envy Flavia for her almost-complete freedom coupled with few responsibilities. What child doesn’t want to escape their parents’ control and do whatever they want, whenever they want? What adult wouldn’t love to toss aside work and grown-up responsibilities to do what appeals to them at the moment?

But all is not fun and games for Flavia, of course. Even discounting the arrest of her father on murder charges, difficulties are a significant part of her life. And it can be argued it is those struggles and her reaction to them that make Flavia de Luce so endearing to the reader, who see in Flavia at least a bit of themselves.

Few of us get through many years of life without having lost a loved one. Like Flavia, we may seem strong and to be handling the loss well, but when we look more closely at her, we see the scars we know we also bear but work hard to conceal, sometimes even from ourselves.

No doubt we’ve all also been hurt by the lack of relationship with someone we care for. Perhaps it’s a sibling who has, throughout our life, held us at arm’s length, or a parent whose standards we could never match up to and who, as a result, discounted us. As a result, we can understand Flavia’s desire for a closer relationship with her father.

Like Flavia’s desire to protect her father and Dogger, we all worry about the safety of our loved ones and want to keep them from harm. And just as the relationship between Flavia and her sisters is immensely complicated, we all struggle at times with the complexity of family relationships and friendships.

Flavia de Luce is undoubtedly a complex protagonist — carefree yet troubled, loving yet standoffish, and a stickler for chemical rules but a flaunter of society’s. She’s a character we want to get to know better. And because “Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” is only the first of an 11-book series, we can do just that!

__A few things to consider as you read “Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie:”__

1. What is it that Flavia most desires in life?

2. Buckshaw, the de Luce family estate, is almost a character in itself. What role does it play in Flavia’s life and in the plot of the book?

3. Is Flavia really the rule-breaker she desires to be seen as when she rides around the countryside on Gladys and flaunts the conventions children of her day were held to?

4. What — not who — provides much of the humor in this book?

5. In Inspector Hewitt’s notes, he uses a capital “P” as shorthand for Flavia. What do you think the “P” stands for?

We’ll discuss these questions and much more during our next Facebook Live chat at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 13. See you then!

__Up Next__

I struggled mightily over our next selection. Approximately 10 years ago, I read tons of historical fiction and got burned out on it, especially fiction set during and around WWII. However, more than a few people have strongly urged me to select this title, so our next book is “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” by Heather Morris.

Patti Miinch, a resident of Cape Girardeau, is an author, mother and mother-in-law of two, grandmother of three and retired educator; while she has many loves, spending time with her family, sports, travel and reading top the list.