Ratings17
Average rating3.6
If you trust her you’ll never make it home…
Avery is an exceptional child. Everything he does is precise, from the way he washes his face in the morning, to the way he completes his homework – without complaint, without fuss, without prompt.
Zib is also an exceptional child, because all children are, in their own way. But where everything Avery does and is can be measured, nothing Zib does can possibly be predicted, except for the fact that she can always be relied upon to be unpredictable.
They live on the same street.
They live in different worlds.
On an unplanned detour from home to school one morning, Avery and Zib find themselves climbing over a stone wall into the Up and Under – an impossible land filled with mystery, adventure and the strangest creatures.
And they must find themselves and each other if they are to also find their way out and back to their own lives.
Featured Series
4 primary booksThe Up-and-Under is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2020 with contributions by A. Deborah Baker.
Reviews with the most likes.
Well that was beautiful! I love Seanan McGuire so much, her books always have that quality where I just want to keep reading because the words sound so nice. It took a friend mentioning Middlegame for me to actually remember why I know this title-before that, I'd assumed she just decided to play with another pseudonym.
A decent book but the copy I had didn't mention that it was part of a series. I much prefer standalone books and, if I had known it was part of a series, I probably wouldn't have started it.
This deserves to be an instant classic of children's literature. The story is so fun, the scenes full of an Alice in Wonderland like surreal beauty, and the characters so fully realized. On top of that, it layers subtle things that are so important to learn—messages of understanding and honoring our emotions, of identity being more than what people see, of inequality and unfairness being something to fight against. I love how deep and meaningful everything is. I can't wait for the sequel!
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