An exciting ecological mystery-adventure in a vividly imagined setting and told through the eyes of Mad(eline), an authentic, funny and engaging voice of a young girl.
When sisters Mad and Roo receive a Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter from their missing ornithologist father, they know something has happened to him. Determined to find him, they set off up a smoking volcano in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle.
Mad and Roo's world turns upside down when their bird-freak dad goes to the jungle and doesn't come back. When they receive a Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter, which Roo swears is in coe, they know that something has happened to him. Determined to find him, the girls set out into the Costa Rican jungle to investigate. With the help of a golden-eyed boy, a rare and valuable bird and some weird jungle flowers that grow between Roo's toes, they fight to rescue their father.
Helen Phillips grew up in the foothills of Colorado in the United States, along with her three siblings. When she was eleven years old, she lost her hair due to the autoimmune condition alopecia, which was pretty hard at the time, but now she thinks there are some major advantages to not having hair (no shampoo in the eyes). Soon after she lost her hair, she (like Mad in Upside Down in the Jungle) made the New Year’s Resolution to write a poem a day, a tradition she continued for over eight years.
Helen attended Yale University, and then went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Brooklyn College. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, artist Adam Douglas Thompson, and their child.
She is the author of a book for adults, And Yet They Were Happy. Upside Down in the Jungle is her first book for young readers.
