When You Look Up

Lorenzo, obsessed with his cell phone, barely notices when he and his mother move to a country house: “Do we have Wi-Fi?” he asks. An enormous old rolltop desk reveals a notebook filled with stories illustrated in cut-paper collage, and Lorenzo starts reading. Throughout, artist Decur toggles deftly between Lorenzo’s world and surreal episodes from the journal, the crisp, brightly colored pages crackling with circus-like energy, the somber paintings reflecting Lorenzo’s slow but steady awakening. In the first journal story, two animals tossing a ball around break a chandelier. A nightmarish sequence shows the broken lamp pursuing them like an enormous grasshopper. The story haunts Lorenzo (“He sat completely still... without understanding any of what he had just read”), who soon notices that the new home’s hall chandelier is also broken. More reading prods Lorenzo to explore his new neighborhood, where he finds other places that the notebook twines with real life. His final discovery ties all the story’s loose ends together with a moving revelation of the notebook’s provenance. Lorenzo’s transformation as he explores his surroundings, finds compassion, and learns to create is tenderly drawn in this testimony to IRL authenticity. A Spanish edition will publish simultaneously. Ages 7–12. [em](Apr.) [/em]