Common Sense Media Review
By Regan McMahon
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Girl meets her match in mind-bending upside-down world.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 4+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
A little girl with brown skin and black braids goes to bed and is awakened when a hole opens up in her room and a cat who looks just like her cat (except that cat's collar is blue and her cat's collar is red) comes through the hole and grabs her cat's toy mouse, and her cat follows after them through the hole. The girl follows her cat and pops through that portal upside down. She eventually finds ANOTHER girl who looks just like her (except that girl has a blue Saturn on her dress instead of a red one). She also sees a bunch of diverse kids playing, but it seems every kid has a double -- different only in clothes or accessories of a different color (such as red vs. blue glasses or a black vs. white head scarf). Eventually the girl in the upside-down world tosses the girl from our world the toy mouse, and the girl and her cat return home through the portal, back into their bedroom, and go to sleep. The portal has closed and the nocturnal adventure appears to be over -- but readers will notice there's now a blue toy mouse in the room ... from the other world.
Is It Any Good?
This unusual, mind-bending wordless story takes readers to a fun opposite world where up is down and down is up and everything's the same but slightly different. Another challenges readers to explore another dimension and kids playing with alternative versions of themselves -- alike except for tiny variations in what they're wearing or holding (like a blue vs. yellow book or red vs. blue leash), or how they're positioned (like upside down vs. right side up). Young readers will have fun figuring out who matches whom and what's different and the same about the pairs of kids. Is it a dream? A parallel universe? Another planet? Is it an ideal world where everyone plays together happily? Kids can decide for themselves as they turn the book over and over to see which end is up.
Author Christian Robinson's playful mixed-media and paper collage art is set against stark white pages in the alternative world and pitch black walls in the bedroom world. The kids are expressive and appealing, and invite readers to make up their own stories about what those kids are up to.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the parallel world in Another. Do you think it's in a dream? On a different planet? If you imagined a different world for kids, what would it be like?
What hint can you find in the art that indicates it's not a dream?
What would it be like to find someone somewhere who looked just like you in another world? How would that make you feel?
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Christian Robinson
- Genre : Picture Book
- Topics : Fantasy ( Magic ) , Animals
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Atheneum
- Publication date : March 5, 2019
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 4 - 8
- Available on : Hardback, Kindle
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate