A review by bookphile_belle
Up From the Sea by Leza Lowitz

5.0

I came across this book by accident. I couldn't sleep in the middle of the night and I opened my library app and started browsing the staff picks category. I needed a book for the alphabet reading challenge I was doing, so I scrolled through to see what I could find. This book caught my eye, because it fit an unfilled category in two reading challenges I was doing. I opened the summary to see what it was about and found that it was written in verse. I just recently read my first book in verse (Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo) and I loved it. It felt meant to be. I just had to give it a try, and I am glad I did. I loved it. I devoured it. Read more than half of it before going back to bed and finished it in the same day! This is the story of a boy named Kai who lives through the tsunami that occurred in Japan after a very large earthquake. This is his story of loss, perseverance, strength, and of finding a way to move on after something so awful. 6 months after this awful event, he gets the opportunity to go to New York to meet some survivors of 9/11, 10 years later. This journey to meet survivors of a tragedy so different from his own helps him find perspective and the strength to heal. One quote in this book really struck me "Losing your parents is the same everywhere." I stopped to wonder if it is true. Kai lost his mom in the tsunami. The hosts that he goes to see in New York lost theirs in 9/11. These events were so vastly different, but the result in a way was the same, each child lost a parent (or both). The loss was devastating and tremendous and earth shattering for these kids and in their loss they were able to help each other, even though the tragedies they experienced had only that one thing in common - each lost a parent. This book was so powerful and I am so grateful that I stumbled upon it in the middle of a sleepless night. I think it is one that will stay with me for a long time.