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Tabor, Corey R.

Ursula Upside Down

40 pp. | HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray | May, 2024 | Trade ISBN 9780063275560 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780063393882 $12.99
(2) K-3 Ursula is a happy pink catfish who enjoys her life eating bugs, only to be asked one day why she swims upside down. What a strange question! Ursula had thought all fish swam like this, with their bellies turned up to the surface of the water. This query causes her to doubt her viewpoint, and if she might be in the wrong: "Was left right?! Was right wrong?! Which way was even up??" These wonderings rock Ursula's world, quite literally: "Her whole world flipped." And with that (the now much-anticipated "Tabor turn" established in Mel Fell, rev. 3/21, and Simon and the Better Bone, rev. 7/23), readers are instructed to flip the book upside down and turn the pages right to left. Ursula now sees the world as others do and realizes that she is, indeed, upside down. When she encounters a bat, she is shown another point of view, in which upside down is perfectly usual. Ultimately, Ursula decides that she gets to determine what's normal. Tabor's mixed-media illustrations bring levity to the book's more serious message, and the book-flipping and page-turns give readers a tactile, sensory experience of changing perspective. Per a brief author's note, the protagonist is based on an actual species of catfish that swims upside down in the Congo River. Julie
Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

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