BOA’s take: This story is put into the beautiful rhythms of verse that ebb and flow like small waves in a calm sea. This hypnotic cadence is what makes it bearable to read about the destruction and after-effects of one large and powerful wave that destroys, in one yawning gulp, the lives of 18,000 people. Like the A-Bomb art of of the 1970’s that brought humanity to the suffering of victims in Hiroshima, Lowitz’s narrative brings beauty among pathos to the tsunami of March 11, 2011.

Book Description

A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village. On the day the tsunami strikes, Kai loses nearly everyone and everything he cares about. But a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11 gives him new hope and the chance to look for his estranged American father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai learns that the only way to make something good come out of disaster is to return and rebuild.

Heartrending yet hopeful, Up from the Sea is a story about loss, survival, and starting anew.