The Upside Down Boy

Juanito is bewildered by his new school, and he misses the warmth of country life. Everything he does feels upside down. He eats lunch when it's recess; he goes out to play when it's time for lunch; and his tongue feels like a rock when he tries to speak English. But a sensitive teacher and loving family help him to find his voice and make a place for himself in this new world through poetry, art, and music.

Juan Felipe Herrera's playful language and the colorful, magical art of Elizabeth Gómez capture the universal experience of children entering a new school feeling like strangers in a world that seems upside down.
 

Juan Felipe Herrera is one of the foremost Mexican American poets writing today. His first book for children, Calling the Doves, received the prestigious Ezra Jack Keats Award honoring the most promising new author for children. In addition to being a poet, he is also an actor, a musician, and a popular professor at the University of California in Riverside.

Elizabeth Gómez is an internationally exhibited and widely acclaimed painter. Critics have praised her delightful sense of fantasy and “fantastical, multicolored pictures,” for their vividness and “flare for colorful metaphor.” A native of Mexico City, she now lives in Redwood City, California, with her husband and daughters.
 

Also available as an audio download from Audible.com
Bilingual English and Spanish
English
Spanish

Themes: Memoirs and Personal Narratives, Immigrant Lives

Related Books: Calling the Doves, Grandma and Me at the Flea, Featherless, Super Cilantro Girl

Also available as an audio download from Audible.com.
 

•    2001-2002 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List (TX Library Assn)
•    Smithsonian's Notable Books for Children, 2000

"Juan Felipe Herrera's story—the product of stream of consciousness recollections from his third grade experience—makes for a warm and vivid children's book…. Elizabeth Gómez illustrates with an equal flair for colorful metaphor." —The Bloomsbury Review

"The Upside Down Boy is more than good—it's excellent. It is… a celebration of family, and of the importance of a frank dialogue between parents and children. [Elizabeth Gómez]'s multicolored, fantastical pictures, with their vibrant colors and echoes of Marc Chagall… enrich the text with all kinds of humorous details. " —Newsweek en Español