Up From the Sea
Random House Children's Books · Paperback · January 17, 2017
A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village. “Successfully captures the raw emotions of loss, grief, and what it means to move forward.” —BuzzFeed On the day the tsunami strikes, Kai loses nearly everyone and everything he cares about.
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- Who it’s for
- A novel-in-verse brings loss and survival into close focus, with room for hope to take root.
- Themes
- Loss and grief, Survival after disaster, Hope and rebuilding
- Genres
- Novels in Verse for Teens, Death & Grief for Teens, YA Survival Stories
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A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village. “Successfully captures the raw emotions of loss, grief, and what it means to move forward.” —BuzzFeed 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.
Continue reading
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. Fans of Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ninth Ward and Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust will embrace this moving story. An author’s note includes numerous sources detailing actual events portrayed in the story. A BOOKRIOT 100 MUST-READ YA BOOKS WRITTEN IN VERSE A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK FOR TEENS, 2016 “Up From the Sea touched me deeply with its beautiful message of hope and the resilience of humanity. Bravo.” —Ellen Oh, author of the Prophecy series “It is a moving story of the rebirth of hope in a teen who has lost almost everything. . . . Kai will resonate with teens on a simple human level, just as 3/11 resonates with 9/11.” —VOYA
Grief, Then Hope
A novel-in-verse brings loss and survival into close focus, with room for hope to take root.
Come here for
- A teen’s response to devastating loss and the possibility of starting anew
- Verse that gives emotional weight a clear, immediate voice
Expect
- A heartrending yet hopeful story of survival
- A sustained narrative about grief, resilience, and rebuilding
Where it sits
| YA Survival Stories | 93% |
|---|---|
| Novels in Verse for Teens | 84% |
| Death & Grief for Teens | 49% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- YA Survival Stories
- YA Orphan & Foster Stories
- Novels in Verse for Teens
- Authors
- Leza Lowitz
- Publisher
- Random House Children's Books
- Published
- January 17, 2017
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Loss and grief · Survival after disaster · Hope and rebuilding
- Reading lane
- YA Survival Stories