Up Above, Down Below

Up Above and Down Below

Written and illustrated by Paloma Valdivia

32 pages; ages 4-6

Owlkids Books, 2012

It’s winter in my part of the world; summer on the other side. I dress in snow pants and boots; kids “down under” can get away with T-shirts and shorts. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to spend some time on what – to me at least – seems like the bottom of the world. It’s so ocean-y, full of islands and rain forests and veld. And I wonder: what would the world look like if I turned my map upside down?

Author-illustrator Paloma Valdivia does that for me, and more.

“In the world, there are different kinds of people,” she writes. “Some live up above and some live down below.” The folks living on the top think the ones below are different, and the ones living down below think the people living up above are different. And they all dream of flying…

… but if they did, how would they know who belongs where? Valdivia accompanies her spare text with stylized, but equally spare, illustrations that draw readers into the two different-but-not-so-different worlds of up above and down below. This is a fun book, but what I really like are the maps she’s put on the endpages! It’s enough to make one apply for a passport…

Review copy provided by publisher.