Up From the Sea

Running through my ruined town, pack flapping winglike against my back. Plowing through blocks strewn with heaps of refrigeratorsblackboardsbicyclestaxis bustedpianosshelvedesksstairs allmixedtogether in a marshland grave. In March 2011, a massive tsunami devastates Japan. Kai, a biracial teen from a coastal village, loses nearly everyone and everything in the storm. When he’s offered a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11, Kai decides to look for his estranged father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai realizes the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there and help rebuild his town. Heartrending yet hopeful, Leza Lowitz’s novel-in-verse is a story about loss, survival, and starting anew.