CW: Lots of deaths after a tsunami wipes out a town. Teenager loses family members. ( )

"When we help each other, we become bigger than ourselves."

Up From the Sea
by Leza Lowitz

Up from the sea....what an unusual and moving story.

This story is about Kai. Although it is fiction, the author writes it is based on the earthquake an tsunami that occurred in Japan March 11, 2011,

Kai is just a kid, in this story when the earth quake and tsunami hit. Told in verse, (a format I have started to read though I have not had all that much experience with it), the book is deeply sad.

Kai loses just about everything. He has no idea where his family is and if they are alive, which seems doubtful. He feels disconnected from life, angry and grieving with survivor's guilt. This is about that and more. It is also about his healing process and how he grows from a scared child into a young man, It's about how he finds himself.

I'll be honest...I cannot say I "enjoyed" this because it's a pretty dark book overall but I liked Kai and I wanted to see how things turned out for him.

Another important thing for people to know is that this book is also, to an extent, about 9/11. In the story Kai is able to met and connect with, survivors from 9/11 and although these two events happen in different countries and are about different tragedies, the pain they leave behind is no different for the survivors.

I was very impressed with the writing and the story itself. It's fairly short but it's powerful. I would highly recommend it. ( )

A brilliant book in verse told from a poignant point of view about the unpredictability of life and the strength of perseverance from one of my all time favorite writers. A must read for children and adults! ( )

I'm very glad that I don't have to be the vindictive ass who gives the tsunami book a low score, because I was worried there for a bit.

Lowitz's strength with her verse seems to be in character motivation and imagery, not in action. The actual tsunami itself drills on plainly, with metaphors and similes you'd expect from a novel about natural disasters. There was nothing in them that justified verse, and it fed into one of my worst pet peeves when it comes to YA verse - the author thinks

that

they can just

space out lines and

that qualifies

as meaningful

poetry

So, why did it end up getting four stars from me? Quite simple, really. Lowitz really pulls it together fairly quickly. Once the tsunami and its aftershocks end - about forty or so pages in, I'm too lazy to grab my actual copy - we dive right into the characters. seeing how the disaster has affected them on a personal and literal level. Here, verse is justified, and churns out some pretty great poetry as a result. Story progression from here on out feels more natural, simply because it is directly tied to characters and not the primal urge to run from danger. The book becomes simply beautiful at this point, my favorite scene being where the main character runs away from their shelter and meets a drunken man. The circumstances surrounding something as "natural" (some might argue with me on my wording/intention here) as a teenager sneaking their first beer is simply ghastly, haunting, even, and certainly stuck with me.

Overall, this one is certainly worth the read, especially because of what it stands for - even if you have to push through the less-than-stellar beginning. ( )

On March 3, 2011, the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami happens. It was a disaster of epic proportions where “approximately 15,889 people died, 6,152 were injured, and 2,601 people are still missing. And 127,290 buildings were destroyed, with a million more severely damaged.”

Leza Lowitz, who lives in Toyoko, used that premise as the basis for her powerfully haunting novel about a teenage boy and the devastation that rocks his costal Japanese village.Kai is at school when the earth begins to shake. A 9.0-magnitude quake rattles and rolls his small village. The aftershocks, which number 11,106, often measured over 7.0.

This scenario would make an excellent novel, but Lowitz doesn’t take the easy way to tell of Kai’s life. Instead she has chosen a novel-in-verse.

Readers run with Kai as he heads for high ground with his teachers and classmates. We feel his weary arms cling to a tree as a wave hits. We reel at the loss of his mother, grandmother, and grandfather, his village, his friends, everything. Everything.

The only bright spot is that Kai’s estranged dad live in New York City; he hopes he can make contact with him, and that, somehow, they can be reunited.

Watching Kai search for his family’s remains and to try to pick up the pieces of his village is eerily reminiscent of watching New Yorkers combed hospitals, leave notes and pictures in the hours and days after 9/11. One thing I learned from this tale is that to the Japanese, 3/11 conjures the same type of painful memories that Americans feel every time 9/11 is mentioned.

Kai is selected to go to New York to participate in the 10th anniversary of 9/11. That part of the story was not delved into enough for me. It almost sounded like a vacation.

I read Up From the Sea in less than two hours. The prose is highly visual and emotionally gut- wrenching. I could not put the book down until I learned how Kai came to terms with what he had endured.

I give Up From the Sea 5.5 out of 5 stars. The whole 9/11 thing could have been left out without hurting the story at all. ( )