Paul Gore

The World Standing on its Head Paul Gore

Blake is a young, non-verbal boy living in Indiana who wanders into a topsy turvy world after the Earth's magnetic fields have inexplicably switched. The poles have been reversed! His normal, routine world of school, home and playing has been replaced by a strange chimera one--part Indiana and part Australia. Only the pedestrian contents of his backpack seem to give him reassurance as he tries to make his way home. Like his precious cork ball with its perfect and never-ending red stitching that comforts him. But it, like him, now seem to be lost, alone, and adrift on a strange Australian sea. What was once normal now seems exotic--and what seemed exotic before--like the talking kangaroo "Waltzing Matilda," and the burning "bumping tree" he finds along the shore, become his most important companions and touchstones.