The Topsy-Turvies

by Francesca Simon, Keren Ludlow (Illustrator)

Entering the house of the Topsy-Turvies for an evening of babysitting, Mrs. Plum notices that their lifestyle is completely different from most as they brush their hair with forks, sit on upside-down furniture, and stand on their heads to watch TV.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

28 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Francesca Simon grew up in California and attended both Yale and Oxford Universities, where she specialised in Medieval Studies. How this prepared her to write children’s books she cannot imagine, but it did give her a thorough grounding in alliteration.

She then threw away a lucrative career as a medievalist and worked as a freelance journalist, writing for the Sunday Times, Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Telegraph, and Vogue (US). After her son Joshua was born in 1989, she started writing children’s books full time. One of the UK’s best-selling children’s writers, Francesca has published over 50 books, including the immensely popular HORRID HENRY series, which has now sold over twelve million copies.

Francesca won the Children’s Book of the Year in 2008 at the British Book Awards for Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman. HORRID HENRY is published in 24 countries and is also an animated CITV series. She lives in London with her husband, son, and Tibetan Spaniel, Shanti.

Reviews

[Pippa Ainsworth · Rating 2 out of 5]

We chose this book as we usually really enjoy Francesca Simon's books but this one wasn't the hit that many of her books are. The Topsy Turvies tells the story of a family who do everything backwards. They get up at bedtime and go to bed in the morning, they eat in the bedroom and they wear their coats indoors.
Objectively it's a fun tale but my children just found it a little silly. While they can cope with fantastical animals and voyages of the imagination, this tale of a family doing things differently to everyone else was simply frustrating to my four year old. She especially disliked that the family didn't know that their behaviour was unusual! This isn't a book for those children who just like people to follow the rules and to not behave strangely.
The book has lovely bright illustrations which engaged my children well but I don't think this will be added to the favourites list.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The topsy turvies are anything but your normal family, they wake up at midnight, they eat on the bed, the kids taught the parents and they even watched tv upside down. They go to watch Mrs. Plumb's house but suddenly a burger comes! Luckily they manage to scare him off before Mrs. Plumb comes back. This book is all around one of my favorite books of all time. The odd concept of parents being treated like kids and kids being allowed to do whatever they want is very funny and clever. The illustrations follow the plot in a very Amelia-Bedelia-eqsue way. All the odd things that happen are illustrated perfectly. The text follows with each picture and gets people to read the text with each picture as intended. The book is extremely well executed and I would recommend to read and to learn to read with any early reader.

[Dorian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a very silly book. I thought that the pictures drove the point home about just how ridiculous the family is and that it is a fictional piece.